MUMBAI: Pune Court has scheduled the hearing on prosecution's plea to extend the custody of the Maoist accused arrested in the month of June to Sunday.
"The court has scheduled the hearing on prosecution's plea to extend custody at 10 am in the morning tomorrow after we said that we shall need some time to file our response," Adv Rohan Nahar, who is the defense counsel in the case, told The New Indian Express.
In the Elgaar Parishad case, wherein an FIR was lodged on January 8, the Pune police had arrested Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut, Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson and Shoma Sen for having links with banned Maoist organizations on June 6.
Charge-sheet needs to be filed in 90 days of the arrest and here the 90-day-limit ends on Monday (September 3). However, the prosecution moved a plea before the court to extend the custody of the accused by 90 more days citing the fresh evidence and seven new names having been added in the FIR.
The defense counsel prayed for some time to file the response and suggested the court that the hearing be kept on Monday. However, the prosecution said that the investigating officer will have to go to Delhi to prepare for the hearing before the Supreme Court, after which the court decided to hear the arguments over the plea on Sunday, Nahar said.
Adv Susan Abraham, while speaking at a press conference in Mumbai in support of the arrested activists earlier this week, had said that the prosecution is trying to kill time and keep the activists under arrest for long time taking disadvantage of the provisions of the law.
The fresh arrests of activists were made so that the prosecution would be able to ask for longer custody of the already arrested activists, she had said.
"We were expecting this but, the prosecution has demanded extension of 90 days. We had not expected them to do so. This is too much," she said while reacting to the development.