NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court today questioned the Maharashtra government about the legality of the transit remand order passed by a Chief Metropolitan Magistrate allowing the state police to take away human rights activist Gautam Navlakha to Pune.
However, after the Supreme Court almost simultaneously heard a petition challenging the arrest of Navlakha and four other activists and ordered that all of them would be kept under house arrest till September 6, the high court said it would pass a direction only after going through the top court’s order.
From the very beginning of the hearing the bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel asked the state police why were all the documents not translated from Marathi and handed over to the court and Navlakha or his lawyers. How the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate was able to understand the charges made out against Navlakha as the documnets were not translated from Marathi questioned Justice Muralidhar.
Appearing for the Maharashtra Police, Additional Solicitor General Aman Lekhi said all efforts were made to make Navlakha understand the grounds of arrest. Navlakha was arrested yesterday following searches in several cities and the arrest of five activists.
