NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday ended the house arrest of Gautam Navlakha, one of the five rights activists arrested in connection with Koregaon-Bhima case, saying his detention had exceeded 24 hours which is “untenable”.
A bench of Justice S. Muralidhar and Justice Vinod Goel said that the transit remand was given by the local court without compliance of mandatory provisions of the Constitution and Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). The high court also quashed the trial court’s transit remand order which he had challenged before the matter was taken to the apex court., saying Navlakha’s case was dealt in a cosmetic manner.
The Pune police had arrested Navlakha from Delhi last month following searches in several cities. A transit remand was also secured from Saket district court in South Delhi to take him to Pune.
The five activists Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Gautam Navlakha, were in jail since 29th August. The police claimed to have proof of the arrested activists’ involvement in an event called Elgaar Parishad that later triggered violence at Bhima-Koregaon in Maharashtra.
