MUMBAI: A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court on Thursday rejected a plea by civil rights activist Gautam Navlakha, arrested in connection with the 2018 Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case, to permanently reside in Delhi. Allowing Navlakha to travel beyond the jurisdiction of the court was entirely different from allowing him to permanently reside outside the court’s jurisdiction, the special court said while rejecting his plea.
Navlakha, who is currently out on bail, had moved the court in April this year, saying it had become uneconomical and burdensome for him to live in Mumbai and sought permission to permanently reside in Delhi. Bail conditions require the activist, now in his 70s, to stay within the territorial jurisdiction of the special NIA court trying the case.
In his plea, Navlakha had pointed out that while his permanent residence, employment and social support system was in Delhi, where he used to live with his partner Sahba Hussain, the couple had been struggling to find accommodation in Mumbai for nearly four months due to the ongoing case.
The plea noted that Navlakha was unemployed and financially dependent on friends and family, which made it difficult for him to sustain a stable lifestyle in Mumbai. He also wished to live close to his ailing, 86-year-old sister in Delhi.
The activist assured to make himself available before the trial court and the investigating officer whenever required and to continue to abide by all other bail conditions imposed by the high court and Supreme Court, if his plea was allowed.
Special sessions judge Chakor S Baviskar said the “unnecessary application deserves to be rejected” as the high court had not granted such liberty either to the trial court or to Navlakha.
“At the cost of repetition, I mention that, granting permission to the accused to travel beyond the jurisdiction of the court is a different thing and allowing him to reside permanently beyond the jurisdiction of the court is entirely different,” the court said.
Navlakha was one of 16 activists and intellectuals arrested in connection with the violence that broke out at Bhima Koregaon village near Pune on January 1, 2018. Navlakha and others are accused of fuelling the violence through their speeches at the Elgar Parishad, a conclave organised by around 260 civil society organisations in Pune’s Shaniwar Wada on December 31, 2017. The conclave was organised to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the battle of Bhima Koregaon, in which a small Mahar regiment of the British army defeated a large Maratha contingent.