By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday stayed the transit of arrested civil rights activist Gautam Navlakha to Pune until it decides on his plea on Wednesday and pulled up the Delhi and Maharashtra Police for failing to respond to questions on why it was necessary to arrest Navlakha. “What is the specific allegation against him?” the bench asked, to which there was no reply from the police officers present in the courtroom.
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“It is not possible to make out a case from the documents placed before us,” Justice S Muralidhar said.
The court remarked that the police was not able to satisfactorily explain under what offence Navlakha has been arrested. The court also questioned as to how the police had managed to get the transit remand from a local court without any local witnesses. Earlier, the metropolitan magistrate at Saket Court had granted the transit remand.
Navlakha was among several others arrested across the country by the Pune police in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence. The activist was arrested from his house in Nehru Enclave in South Delhi around 2.15 pm. Following his arrest, a habeas corpus was filed in the high court and the matter was mentioned before Chief Justice Rajendra Menon, who listed the matter for hearing before an appropriate bench at 4 pm. The matter came up for hearing before a bench comprising Justices Muralidhar and Vinod Goel.
The bench posted the case for hearing on Wednesday morning saying that a hearing was not possible after court hours. The court also directed Navlakha to be kept under house arrest while being permitted only to interact with his lawyers. Navlakha was arrested under various section of IPC and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. According to sources documents, laptops, pen drive were confiscated from his home.
