Supreme court refuse to deal with arrest of five activist in connection with Elgaar Parishad

Last updated Sep 29, 2018

NP NEWS NETWORK

PUNE

After getting lashes in Supreme Court on the arrest of five activists in Elgaar Parishad but on Friday the Justice Coram has refused to interfere in the arrest connection.

The Coram bench with 2:1 majority, Chief Justice of India Deepak Misra and justice A M Khanwilkar on Friday has observed that the arrests were not because of dissent of five rights activists but there is prima facie material to show their links with the banned CPI (Maoist) organization.

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The SC further also refused to appoint a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the case. But the house arrest of the activists will continue for four weeks to permit them to take appropriate measures and the SC gave freedom to the investigating officer to proceed against them as per law.

The five activists Varavara Rao from Hyderabad, Arun Ferreira from Mumbai, Vernon Gonsalves- Mumbai, Sudha Bharadwaj New Delhi and Gautam Navlakha– are under arrest at their respective homes since August 29 by Pune city police team.

Dissenting Justice Chandrachud said dissent is the safety valve in the pressure cooker of democracy and it cannot be muzzled by brute force of police. When the investigation appears to be unfair, the SC must step in.

The SC had told the Maharashtra government that there should be a clear-cut distinction between opposition and dissent on one hand and attempts to create disturbance, law and order problems or overthrow the government on the other.

Citing the case of wrongful arrest of scientist Nambi Narayan in Isro spy case, Justice Chandrachud said liberty cherished by the Constitution would have no meaning if persecution of five activists is allowed without a proper investigation.

The plea was filed by historian Romila Thapar and others seeking the immediate release of five rights activists in connection with the Parishad which lighted the violence to Koregaon Bhima case and a SIT probe into their arrest.
The plea by Thapar, economists Prabhat Patnaik and Devaki Jain, sociology professor Satish Deshpande and human rights lawyer Maja Daruwala, has sought an independent probe into the arrests and the immediate release of the activists.
The Maharashtra police had arrested them on August 28 in connection with an FIR lodged following a conclave ‘Elgaar Parishad’ — held on December 31 last year that had later triggered violence at Koregaon-Bhima village of Pune which later turned into Maharashtra Bandh.

At present the SC had directed the Pune Police to keep the activists/lawyers under house arrest “in their own homes” till further orders, thereby protecting their liberty.
It was contended by the State of Maharashtra that the raids were conducted based on evidence gathered from the computer systems and emails of other accused persons arrested in the same case.

The Court had warned against “cooked up evidence” against the activists in question and had asserted that a SIT will be formed to look into the validity of these raids if the evidence is found to be “cooked up”.
The State of Maharashtra maintained that there was a larger ploy at play in this case and claimed that the arrested activists have links with banned terror outfits some of them “having committed serious offenses”.

The Court had remarked that liberty of people cannot be stifled based on conjectures and had asserted that it would “look at the case with hawk’s eyes”

The Court had demanded for the entire case diary to ascertain the validity of the raids and arrests in the case even as the State of Maharashtra’s submission from the beginning was that the petitioners, in this case, were “strangers” to the case and had no locus standing to challenge the arrests where they were not personally aggrieved.
The Court had reserved its order in the case on September 20.