Activist Anand Teltumbde was released on Saturday evening. (Express photo/Arul Horizon)MEMBERS OF the legal fraternity and activists on Saturday criticised the Pune Police’s move to arrest Dalit scholar and civil rights activist Anand Teltumbde in spite of the Supreme Court, on January 14, granting him protection from arrest for four weeks, so that he could seek bail from the trial court.
Teltumbde is among 22 people named as accused in the Elgaar Parishad case for alleged CPI (Maoist) links. A professor at the Goa Institute of Management, Teltumbde was arrested from Mumbai airport early this morning after a Pune court turned down his anticipatory bail plea on Friday evening. After Teltumbde was picked up by police, the same court declared his arrest illegal and he was released on Saturday evening.
“The attitude of the Maharashtra Police is such that it seems they feel that a Supreme Court order doesn’t apply to them,” said Advocate Ravindranath Balla, adding that Teltumbde was arrested without application of mind. Balla represents Hyderabad-based poet Varavara Rao in the same Elgaar Parishad case.
Advocate Susan Abraham, wife of Vernon Gonsalves, another accused in the case, said that the move caught everyone by surprise. “Public Prosecutor Ujjwala Pawar stated in her reply to the bail appeal that Teltumbde’s protection from arrest ended with the Pune court rejecting his plea. The police did not recognise the Supreme Court’s order that he has protection from arrest till February 11 and used some twisted logic to arrest him,” she said.
Abraham said that with his release, Teltumbe on Monday would do what he what he had come to Mumbai for — move Bombay High Court against the rejection of his bail plea. “This is a man who has been wronged for following the best traditions of critical thinking,” she added.
“Supreme Court had said that for four weeks, Anand Teltumbde is not to be arrested. His anticipatory bail was rejected by the trial court, and since the four weeks were not over, he can go to high court or Supreme Court, but he was arrested before that, which according to us is highly illegal and contemptuous of the SC order. When he was produced before the remand court on Saturday, it was argued that the SC has granted four weeks’ time. The court agreed and released Teltumbde,” said senior lawyer Mihir Desai, who had previously appeared for Teltumbde in the HC.
Many others also claimed that the police seemed to have mad the arrest in a hurry. “There is no case against Teltumbde. The police have concocted and framed false charges. The arrest seemed to be done in a hurry,” said N Vasudevan, president of Mumbai Electric Employees Union, whose five members have been arrested on charges of collecting funds for Maoists.
“The SC order gave him (Teltumbde) interim protection of four weeks from arrest. The police have violated his rights, just as the court announced today, by arresting him before the term got over,” said advocate Lara Jesani.
“The Police should have been cautious if there was such an order from the Supreme Court. Even if his anticipatory bail was rejected by the trial court, there was four-week relief given by by SC… the police should have let him avail to the legal remedy, before arresting him,” said senior counsel Amit Desai.
