Justice Sadhana Jadhav of the Bombay high court has recused herself from hearing a bunch of petitions about the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, the third judge of the HC to do so this year.
A special NIA court here on Wednesday denied interim bail to activist Anand Teltumbde, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, to visit his nonagenarian mother in wake of the death of his brother Milind Teltumbde, a top Naxal leader, in an encounter with security forces last month.
The Koregaon-Bhima Inquiry Commission, probing the January 2018 violence near a memorial in Maharashtra's Pune district, has told the state government that it is suspending all scheduled hearings till the government does not provide it a "suitable accommodation" in Mumbai to conduct the probe into the case.
The case pertains to alleged inflammatory speeches made at the 'Elgar Parishad' conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017, which, the police claimed, triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial located on the outskirts of the western Maharashtra city.
The apex court on July 28 granted bail to the two accused, noting that the actual involvement of Gonsalves and Ferreira in any terrorist act has not surfaced from any third-party communications.
The release of activists Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira, accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, could get delayed as a special NIA court in Mumbai on Monday rejected their pleas for temporary cash bail.
The Bombay high court on Friday granted bail to scholar-activist Anand Teltumbde, arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.
Gurumurthy's counsel said the journalist has already tendered his apology in relation to a tweet and there is no necessity for him to file another affidavit conveying an unconditional apology in clear terms.
The Supreme Court said on Friday keeping activist Gautam Navlakha under house arrest in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist link case further will set a "wrong precedent" and directed the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to apprise it of his current medical condition and the stage of trial.
The Bombay high court in its judgment granting bail to activist Gautam Navlakha, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, has noted that there was no material on record to infer prima facie that he conspired to or committed any terrorist act.
The 70-year-old social activist had moved HC challenging the September 5, 2022 order under the National Investigation Agency Act refusing him bail on merits.
He was to surrender on September 5, but filed a plea seeking an extension of the bail and later filed another application seeking permanent bail on the ground of ill-health.
Teltumbde is the third of the 16 accused arrested in the case to be released on bail.
The agency, in its affidavit filed in response to Navlakha's plea, also claimed that he had 'committed acts that had a direct impact on the national security, unity and sovereignty'.
Social activist Gautam Navlakha, accused of having links to Maoists and Pakistan's spy agency ISI, on Friday withdrew from the Supreme Court his application seeking to be shifted to Delhi from Mumbai under house arrest.
"Over 50 files were created on Swamy's hard drive, including incriminating documents that fabricated links between him and the Maoist insurgency," the report said.
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.
None of them had anything to do with the violence at Bhima Koregaon, where they were not even present, points out Aakar Patel.
A bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Sudhanshu Dhulia said the actual involvement of Gonsalves and Ferreira in any terrorist act has not surfaced from any third-party communications.
Gautam Navlakha, an accused in Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, was released from Taloja prison in Navi Mumbai on Saturday evening and will live under house arrest for a month.
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 Pune police registered a case against Hindu seer Kalicharan Maharaj, right-wing leader Milind Ekbote and four others for allegedly making inflammatory speeches during an event in Pune and hurting religious sentiments, officials said on Wednesday.
Scholar-activist Anand Teltumbde, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, is an 'active member' of the Communist Party of India-Maoist and 'deeply involved' in furtherance of the outfit's agenda, the National Investigatoin Agency (NIA) has told a special court in Mumbai.
Yug Chaudhary, counsel for co-accused Sudha Bahrdwaj, then told the court that the War and Peace that the court had referred to on Wednesday was a collection of essays edited by one Biswajit Roy, and was titled War and Peace in Junglemahal: People, State and Maoists.
Teltumbde, who is in jail for the last one-and-a-half years, had approached the HC last month, challenging the order of a special court in the city denying him bail on merits in July.
Shah said after the SC refusal to interfere with the arrests of five activists in the Koregaon-Bhima violence case
A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice Hima Kohli said it will not interfere with the high court order granting bail to Teltumbde.
"We cut short the Assembly session recently. So far, over 10 ministers and over 20 MLAs have tested positive for coronavirus. Everybody wants to be part of the celebrations of New Year, birthdays and other occasions. Keep in mind that the new variant (Omicron) spreads fast and hence caution is needed," he said.
He said the government is also trying to find those officers, who had been reportedly sent to Israel to study the snooping software then.
The raids were carried out as part of a probe into the violence between Dalits and the upper caste Peshwas at Koregaon-Bhima village near Pune after an event called Elgar Parishad, or conclave, on December 31 last year.
As the hearing started, Justice Bhat, who was on the bench with Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit, expressed his inability to be part of the hearing but did not elaborate on the reason.
On the last date of hearing, the Maharashtra police had produced additional letters to establish Moist links of the arrested accused even as the petitioners described it as cooked-up evidence.
The Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court on Tuesday refused bail to advocate Surendra Gadling in connection with a 2016 Surjagarh iron ore mine arson case, noting that prima facie the accusations against him are true.
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.
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.
Kabir Kala Manch activists had allegedly made provocative speeches leading to violence at Koregaon Bhima in the district, according to an FIR registered at Vishrambaug police station after the event.
A special court in Mumbai has directed poet-activist P Varavara Rao, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case who was recently granted bail on medical ground by the Supreme Court, to reside in Mumbai and not to leave the city without its permission.
Teltumbde later termed the police's case against him and several other social activists as 'harassment' and a ploy to 'humiliate' them.
The Bombay high court on Thursday said Jesuit priest and activist Stan Swamy, arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, shall remain admitted in a Mumba-based private hospital till June 18 as he is suffering from Covid-19.
The petition came up for hearing before a bench of Justices K M Joseph and Hrishikesh Roy which issued notices to the NIA and the state seeking their responses.