Bhima Koregaon-Elgaar Parishad case: SC extends Bombay HC stay on Gautam Navlakha bail

The Supreme Court on Friday, 5 January said the order of the Bombay High Court granting bail to the Bhima Koregaon-Elgaar Parishad case accused Gautam Navlakha will not be given effect till the next date of listing.

A bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and S.V.N. Bhatti ordered that the stay already granted by the Bombay High Court be extended till the matter is posted before an appropriate bench.

The bench asked the top court’s registry to place the special leave petition filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) before CJI D.Y. Chandrachud to decide on tagging it with pending cases of other co-accused or clubbing all the matters together.

It said, “We are not inclined to express anything on merits. We direct the registry to place the present matter before the Chief Justice of India so as to facilitate the feasibility of either posting this matter with any other matters or clubbing all the matters together before an appropriate bench. Taking the consideration of the fact that the High Court has granted stay already, the same is stand extended till the matter is posted before the appropriate bench.”

On 19 December 2023, a division bench of Justices A.S. Gadkari and Shivkumar S.Dige of the High Court had granted bail to activist-journalist Gautam Navlakha, who has been in custody since 14 April 2020 for his alleged links with Maoists.

However, the High Court deferred implementation of its order for three weeks after the anti-terror agency sought a stay for filing a special leave petition in the Supreme Court.

Navlakha, 73, has been in continuous custody in jail and after a Supreme Court order, was placed under house arrest from November 2022, on account of his advanced age and health conditions.

Navlakha, along with the other accused were arrested and charged by the Pune Police and later by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for plotting to overthrow the government and instigating the caste riots at the Bhima Koregaon memorial near Maharashtra's Pune on 1 January, 2018 which left one youth dead, and created a political turmoil in the state.

A former office-bearer of the PUDR, he was also accused of Maoist links, furthering the agenda of the outlawed CPI(Maoist), possessing incriminating documents, supporting Kashmir separatists, and other offences, and his earlier bail applications were rejected by the Special NIA Court.