The Maharashtra government moved the Supreme Court on Wednesday against a Delhi High Court order quashing the transit remand and house arrest of activist Gautam Navlakha, ANI reported. Navlakha was among the five human rights activists arrested in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case on August 28.
The Maharashtra government will mention the case before Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and seek an immediate stay on the High Court order. The plea was filed in the Supreme Court registry on Wednesday morning, Maharashtra government’s counsel Nishant Katneshwar told PTI.
On Monday, the Delhi High Court said Navlakha’s detention was untenable by law and ended his house arrest immediately. It also rejected the Maharashtra Police’s petition to extend his house arrest by at least two days.
The Pune Police arrested Navlakha, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Sudha Bharadwaj and Varavara Rao on August 28 as part of their investigation into violence during an event in Bhima Koregaon near Pune on January 1. The police had arrested five other activists in June – Shoma Sen, Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut, Rona Wilson and Sudhir Dhawale. While these people are currently lodged in jail, those arrested in August were placed under house arrest.
The police claimed the activists were “urban Naxalites” who used an anti-caste commemoration event in Pune to whip up sentiments that resulted in the violence in Bhima Koregaon. This was part of a larger plot, the police claimed, to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi and overthrow the government.
On September 28, the Supreme Court allowed investigation officers to continue with their inquiry into the violence. The court, in a 2:1 judgment, rejected the plea for an inquiry by a Special Investigation Team into the arrests of activists in the case. It also extended the house arrest of the activists by four weeks.
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