NEW DELHI: While Mumbai police on Friday claimed it had “solid evidence” against the arrested activists for being alleged
naxalite sympathisers, none of the material has till now surfaced in any court hearing.
Senior advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan, who represents
Gautam Navlakha, said the Maharasthra Police’s absurdity of charges was exposed in the Delhi high court itself during the two days it heard a habeus corpus on Navlakha’s arrest.
Speaking to TOI, Ramakrishnan didn’t go into specifics of the case but noted how “perfectly normal and legitimate activities are now sought to be criminalised by these charges” adding that this is clearly misuse of the anti-terror law.
“Over a period of time, the kind of cases that are being filed, show the absurdity of these charges. Terrorism under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act was meant for a purpose. There has to be a proximate connection to the terrorist act. Even if we believe the police version, how does a pamphlet of a Russian grenade launcher or a reference to it become a terrorist act? ” the senior lawyer wondered
Delhi HC had on Wednesday punched holes in the initial claims made by
Pune police against Navlakha on the basis of which it had sought his remand. A bench of justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel had castigated Saket court chief metropolitan magistrate Manish Khurana for giving remand without asking for the case diaries and related documents.
Even as HC had dictated its order partially, the SC had directed that all the five arrested activists be kept under house arrest till September 6. The HC bench then halted its proceedings and will now take up the case on September 14.
Ramakrishnan underlined that though her client had the benefit of seeking legal help in HC which faulted CMM Khurana for his lapses, poor persons in villages hardly have such remedy of a high court readily available.
Meanwhile, on Thursday HC also directed that all documents, after translating them from Marathi, be provided to Navlakha’s lawyers by the next date. The failure of police to provide translated documents to Navlakha’s lawyers and the fact that CMM Khurana didn’t even ask for the case diaries had irked the court earlier, prompting it to set aside the remand order, before SC proceedings overtook events in HC.
The bench had earlier questioned how "without translated documents, the magistrate could have applied its mind to issue transit remand order” and grilled
Maharashtra Police for not providing all documents, translated from Marathi, to the court as well as Navlakha.
The Maharashtra Police wanted to arrest Navlakha and take him to Pune in connection with an FIR lodged there following an event -- 'Elgaar Parishad' (conclave) -- held on December 31 last year that had triggered violence at Koregaon-Bhima village.
