Image Courtesy:thehindu.com
Activist and senior journalist Gautam Navlakha has moved the Supreme Court challenging the Bombay High Court’s recent order rejecting his bail application, reported LiveLaw. A three-judge Bench of Justices UU Lalit, Indira Banerjee and KM Joseph will be hearing his plea on March 3, 2021.
A Bench of Justices SS Shinde and MS Karnik had rejected the Bhima Koregaon accused Gautam Navlakha’s bail application on February 8, more than six weeks after the matter was reserved for orders.
On the issue of law, the Bombay High Court had held that the time spent in unlawful custody cannot be included while calculating the 90 days period prescribed for grant of default bail under section 167(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code.
So, the 34 days Navlakha had spent under house arrest, between August 28, 2018 to October 10, 2019, were not used to calculate his total detention period, especially since his arrest, as well as the magistrate’s transit remand, was found to be illegal by the Delhi High Court.
SabrangIndia reported on how Navlakha was not technically under detention for police investigation, as the court remarked, “During the period of house arrest, barring the Appellant’s lawyers and ordinary residents of the house, the Appellant was not supposed to meet any one or step out of the premises till further orders. The High Court of Delhi had ordered that the Appellant be kept at the same place from where he was picked up with two guards of the Special Cell, Delhi Police along with local police that was originally present to arrest the Appellant, outside the house. It is therefore obvious that the Investigating Agency/Investigating Officer did not have any access to him nor had an occasion to interrogate him.”
The human rights activist was arrested in 2018 for his alleged role in the Bhima Koregaon violence that resulted in the death of one 28-year-old man. Last year, amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Supreme Court dismissed his anticipatory bail plea and was instructed to surrender before NIA on April 14, 2020.
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