The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is probing alleged fraudulent foreign funds infusion of more than Rs 86 crore into a company that runs the NewsClick portal even as it is expected to soon file a charge sheet in the case being probed under the anti-money laundering law, official sources said on Monday.
Poet-activist Varavara Rao, 81, is the only accused in the case to have secured an interim bail. The Bombay high court had in February this year granted Rao conditional bail for six months considering his medical condition. Rao had been in jail since his arrest in August 2018.
The anti-terror agency, while referring to the evidence on record, claimed Navlakha was working in urban areas and assigned the job to unite intellectuals against government forces to defeat them.
Corrupt people are destroying the country and they get away with corruption by taking the help of money, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday.
The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the NIA's application and ordered social activist Gautam Navlakha to be put under house arrest within 24-hours after shifting him from Taloja jail in Navi Mumbai.
A government lawyer told the Bombay high court on Friday that though prison inmates can talk to their relatives or lawyers on phone, she was not sure if the facility could be granted to activist Gautam Navlakha, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.
Prima facie there was a nexus between human rights activist Gautam Navlakha, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, and Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, an agent of Pakistan's spy agency ISI convicted in the United States for terror funding, a special NIA court has said in its order denying bail to the campaigner.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the hurdle for the release of activist Gautam Navlakha from Navi Mumbai's Taloja prison, where he is lodged in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist link case, by waiving the requirement of a solvency certificate for availing the benefit of house arrest.
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.
The Supreme Court agreed to list for hearing on Friday a fresh plea of activist Gautam Navlakha, who has not been put under house arrest despite the apex court's direction in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist link case.
Bhima Koregaon represents what the government can do in India against well meaning people who speak up against atrocities, who stand up for the weak and the dispossessed and for this reason alone as seen as enemies of the State and kept in prison for as long as the government can manage. So long as the rest of us do not speak up against this misbehaviour by the State, so long as we forget about those who have been made its victims, this behaviour will continue, asserts Aakar Patel.
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on the arrests and Professor Guha's assertion of what the greatest Indian of our times would unquestionably have done had he been alive.
The Bombay high court on Friday granted bail to scholar-activist Anand Teltumbde, arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.
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 top court said receiving medical treatment is a fundamental right of a prisoner.
Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar said on Wednesday that the Bharatiya Janata Party's attempt to form a government with his nephew and Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar had one benefit, as it ended President's rule in Maharashtra in 2019.
'I was under the illusion that this could never happen to me because my background was such -- corporate CEO, IIT professor, IIT alumnus, IIM...'
However, till Monday evening he was still in prison as formalities for his release could not be completed.
The Income Tax department on Friday conducted separate 'survey operations' at the premises of online news portals Newsclick and Newslaundry in New Delhi, officials said.
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.
Do Uddhav Thackeray, Aditya Thackeray, Sanjay Raut, and Sharad Pawar want the deaths of the Bhima Koregaon accused to be associated with their regime? asks Jyoti Punwani.
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 Supreme Court on Thursday allowed jailed activist Gautam Navlakha's request for house arrest, saying prima facie there is no reason to reject his medical report.
The special court judge D E Kothalikar has asked the national probe agency to file its reply on the matter on November 26.
'We urge you to take remedial measures to address this blatant injustice pending withdrawal of the case against them,' the MPs write.
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.
The draft lays down 17 charges against 15 accused, including human rights and civil liberties activists, and they have been sought to be charged under various sections of the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
In the final segment of a four-part interview, Communist Party of India-Maoist general secretary Ganapathy says the Maoists are prepared to come to the table for talks provided the government agrees to their main demands.
"The Centre will not invite Maoists to talk till they abjure violence," said G K.Pillai, the Home Secretary. Pillai was speaking at a seminar organised by South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA). The other participants were Maoist sympathizer and PUCL, Hyderabad, chairman and eminent human rights lawyer, K.B.Kannabirn, and human rights activists Gautam Navlakha and Shabnam Hashmi.
The court, however, extended the interim protection from arrest granted to them for a period of four weeks so that they can approach the Supreme Court in appeal.
In Part III of the interview, the CPI-Maoist general secretary says that the party is building its cadre base to wage a protracted war with 'enemy' forces.
In the first of a 5-part series, Ganapathy talks about the birth of revolutionary movement, its struggles and the way it has learnt its lessons with passing time.
ACP Shivaji Pawar has been asked to file his affidavit by August 15.
They also demanded action against officials of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is conducting a probe into the Elgar Parishad case, and former superintendent of the Taloja jail.
The accused persons held training camps at various regions to recruit cadres at all levels for commission of terrorist activities of the CPI (Maoist), the anti-terror agency said.
Teltumbde, the grandson-in-law of Dalit icon Dr B R Ambedkar, was produced before a special NIA court judge A T Wankehede after his remand ended on Saturday.
Navlakha, Teltumbde and several other activists have been booked by the Pune Police for their alleged Maoist links and several other charges following the violence at Koregaon Bhima village in Pune district on January 1, 2018.
The court asked the Maharashtra police to file their case diary pertaining to the ongoing investigation in the case by September 24.
According to a media report published on Saturday, only one of the outfits to which eight of the arrested activists belonged was declared as unlawful.
Maharashtra Police had on August 28 raided the homes of the prominent Left-wing activists in several states and arrested at least five of them for their alleged Maoist links, sparking a chorus of outrage from human rights defenders.