The Bombay high court on Friday granted temporary bail of four days to former Delhi University professor Hany Babu, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, to undergo cataract surgery and a medical check-up at a city-based hospital.
A bench of Justices S B Shukre and G A Sanap dismissed the plea and said that if Navlakha had any grievances pertaining to the lack of medical aid and basic facilities at Taloja jail -- the grounds he had cited while seeking house arrest -- he should inform the special NIA court of the same.
'If the Breach Candy hospital wishes to send him back to prison before June 3, it must seek the court's permission'
The Bombay high court on Friday granted two weeks' time to the National Investigation Agency to file its reply on the petitions of activists Sudha Bharadwaj and Gautam Navlakha, both accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, seeking clone copies of all the electronic devices seized from them by the central agency.
Delhi University associate professor Hany Babu, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, moved the Bombay high court on Wednesday seeking medical aid for an eye infection which he developed after contracting Covid-19.
Navlakha's lawyers, advocates Yug Chaudhry, Wahab Khan and Chandni Chawla, were likely to move the Supreme Court after Wednesday's ruling of the special NIA court, sources said.
The case relates to Elgar Parishad, a conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017. Pune Police had alleged that it had been backed by Maoists, and provocative speeches made there led to caste violence near Bhima-Koregaon war memorial the next day.
A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Mumbai on Monday rejected the bail plea of human rights activist Gautam Navlakha, an accused in the Elghar Parishad-Maoist links case.
On Wednesday, when Babu's plea came up before a bench of Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and VG Bisht, the bench recused itself from hearing it without citing any reason.
Use of social media or the Internet by Navlakha could prove to be dangerous, NIA counsel, additional solicitor general Anil Singh, said while opposing the septuagenarian activist's plea that he be kept under house arrest.
The Bombay high court on Thursday commuted to life imprisonment the death penalty awarded to three convicts in the 2013 gangrape case of a 22-year-old photojournalist inside the defunct Shakti Mills compound in central Mumbai, saying that they 'deserve imprisonment for life to repent the offence committed by them'.
The court was hearing a petition filed by Navlakha seeking that he be shifted from custody in the Taloja prison in Navi Mumbai to judicial custody in the form of house arrest owing to his advanced age and the host of ailments that he suffers from.
Saying that prison inmates do not cease to be human beings and can't be deprived of the fundamental right to life, the Bombay High Court on Thursday directed the Maharashtra government to transfer alleged Maoist leader Nirmala Uppuganti from jail to a hospice for palliative care on account of her terminal cancer.
The Bombay high court on Thursday asked the Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai not to discharge Delhi University associate professor Hany Babu, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, till June 1 and sought a medical report on his condition and treatment given to him.
The Bombay high court on Friday said all prisoners had a fundamental right to access their own medical records.
In his plea, Navlakha, 69, also sought that the HC direct authorities of the Taloja prison in neighbouring Navi Mumbai to get him medically examined for a lump developed in his chest.
The Bombay high court on Wednesday permitted Delhi University's associate professor Hany Babu, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, to be shifted to the private Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai for medical treatment.
She has been in custody as an undertrial since her arrest in 2018.
Special Public Prosecutor Raja Thakare said that he would not pray for death at all.