The Supreme Court has rejected historian Romil Thapar’s review plea challenging its decision to not order a Special Investigation Team inquiry into the arrests of five activists in the Bhima Koregaon case in August, ANI reported on Saturday. The court had rejected an urgent hearing of the plea on Wednesday.
A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice DY Chandrachud said there was “no case for review of judgement” of its earlier order, Live Law reported.
On September 28, a three-judge bench headed by former Chief Justice Dipak Misra allowed investigation officers to continue with their inquiry and rejected the plea for a SIT investigation. The court also extended the house arrest of five of the activists by four weeks.
Five activists – Shoma Sen, Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut, Rona Wilson and Sudhir Dhawale – were arrested on June 6, and five more – Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Gautam Navlakha, Sudha Bharadwaj and Varavara Rao – were arrested on August 28 as part of the Pune Police’s investigation into violence between Marathas and Dalits during an event in Bhima Koregaon near Pune on January 1.
A day after the second set of arrests, five citizens, including Thapar, filed a petition before the top court to seek their release. Later, an intervention application was also filed on behalf of those arrested in June.
On Friday, a Pune sessions court rejected the bail pleas of Bharadwaj, Ferreira and Gonsalves. Gonsalves and Ferreira were taken into custody in Mumbai later in the day and on Saturday they were sent to police custody till November 6.
The Maharashtra Police is at present at the house of activists and lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj in Faridabad. They arrived there after midnight on Saturday.
The Bombay High Court on Friday restrained the police from arresting civil rights activist Gautam Navlakha until November 1 in connection with the case. However, it refused to grant interim relief to author Anand Teltumbde. The Delhi High Court had ordered Navlakha’s release from house arrest on October 1.
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