The Bombay High Court on Friday declined to grant anticipatory bail to civic rights Gautam Navlakha and Anand Teltumbde in the Elgar Parishad case.
However, Justice Prakash D Naik of the High Court extended interim protection from arrest granted to both of them for four weeks so they could approach the Supreme Court in appeal.
While Navlakha had moved the high court after a special Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) court in Pune rejected his anticipatory bail plea on November 12, 2019, Teltumbde had approached the court for anticipatory bail in February 2019.
The special court in Pune had earlier rejected Navalkha’s anticipatory bail plea after observing that the Prosecution had sufficient material to show that Navlakha was “not only a member of the banned organisation but an active leader”.
Navlakha and Anand Teltumbde were among the activists booked in connection with an FIR registered on January 8,2018 at the Pune’s Vishram Baug Police Station in connection with the Elgaar Parishad organised at Shaniwar Wada on December 31, 2017 by the leftist outfit Kabir Kala Manch (KKM) and Republican Panthers Party ahead of the January 1, 2018 Bhima-Koregaon riots.
The Vishrambaug police had registered the FIR on the basis of a complaint lodged a local builder Tushar Damgude, who had alleged the members CPT (Maoist) and Kabir Kala Manch had spread hatred through provocative songs, plays and speeches delivered at Elgaar Parishad held on December 31, 2017, which led to violence following the incident at Bhima-Koregaon.
The FIR, originally registered u/s 153(A), 505 (1)(b), 117 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), had made out a conspiracy case in March 2018 and relevant sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) were added to the case latter.
The investigators have been claiming right from day one that the evidence gathered by them had shown that the CPI (Maoist) had hatched conspiracy to form an all India united front “to overthrow the government established by the law” and that the Elgar Parishad had been organised in Pune on December 31, 2017 as part of this conspiracy.
They had also said that the plot hatched Maoist to carry out “Rajiv Gandhi-type” assassination of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was part of their conspiracy.
In 2018, the Pune police had arrested ten activists with alleged Maoist links made police in two batches --- five on June 6 and another five on August 28 -- as part of their investigations into the FIR registered on January 8,2018 at the Pune’s Vishrambaug Police Station in connection with the Elgaar Parishad organised on December 31, 2017 by the leftist outfit Kabir Kala Manch (KKM) and Republican Panthers Party ahead of the January 1, 2018 Bhima-Koregaon riots.