The Supreme Court on Friday said that it is not inclined to entertain National Investigation Agency’s challenge to the house arrest of activist Gautam Navlakha, one of the co-accused persons in the Bhima Koregaon case, Live Law reported.
The 70-year-old activist has been accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, which pertains to caste violence in a village near Pune in 2018. He was among 16 people arrested for allegedly plotting the violence.
The court on Friday said that its directive allowing Navlakha to be placed under house arrest for a month should be implemented within 24 hours of authorities receiving the order. The Supreme Court had passed the order on November 10.
The activist had filed a plea seeking to be shifted from jail on the grounds of ill health and poor facilities in prison.
However, Navlakha could not be released from the Taloja jail in Navi Mumbai due to bureaucratic hurdles and objections from the National Investigation Agency.
On Thursday, the agency filed a fresh application in the Supreme Court seeking to vacate the order on house arrest, according to Live Law.
On Friday, the court said that it could see that the National Investigation Agency was attempting to delay the case, NDTV reported.
“Is Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and Additional Solicitor General SV Raju here to say that the police can’t keep a watch on an ailing 70-year-old man?” Justice KM Joseph asked the counsels representing the central agency on Friday, reported NDTV.
When the agency asked for time until Monday to prepare arguments, the court refused.
Meanwhile, Navlakha has also filed a petition, claiming that the agency did not comply with a direction to inspect the proposed location of the house arrest within 48 hours.
The National Investigation Agency claimed that the medical reports cited by Navlakha were biased since they were prepared by Mumbai’s Jaslok Hospital, where a senior doctor – S Kothari – is the activist’s brother-in-law.
“It is not unreasonable to assume that the said doctor, being on a very senior position in the said hospital, would yield considerable influence in the said hospital,” he said.
The agency claimed that when Navlakha proposed to get himself examined at the Jaslok Hospital, he did not disclose his relationship with Kothari.
The objection raised by the National Investigation Agency is the second hindrance Navlakha is facing in being shifted from jail.
Among the conditions laid down by the Supreme Court while allowing the house arrest, was producing a surety of Rs 2 lakh by November 14, as proof of solvency. Navlakha could not be shifted from jail initially as he could not produce the document.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court had waived the requirement after Navlakha’s lawyers submitted that it would take a minimum of six weeks to secure a solvency certificate.
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