Maharashtra govt files caveat in SC in Gautam Navlakha case

Maharashtra on Tuesday filed a caveat before the Supreme Court with respect to the Bombay High Court judgment on activist Gautam Navlakha related to the Bhima Koregaon case.

The Bombay High Court had on September 13 rejected the petition filed by Navlakha seeking quashing of FIR filed against him by Pune Police in the case.

Pune Police had earlier submitted before the bench that Navlakha was in touch with Kashmiri separatists and people linked to the terrorist organisation Hizbul Mujahideen.

A division bench of Justices Ranjit More and Bharti Dangre had earlier reserved the order on the application moved by Navlakha who was charged for alleged Maoist links in Bhima Koregaon violence.

On January 1 in 2018, violence had erupted at Bhima-Koregaon battle, leaving one dead and several injured, including 10 policemen.

The police had filed 58 cases against 162 people during a state-wide shutdown in January following clashes in Bhima-Koregaon.

Later that year, they filed a charge sheet against ten people. The charge sheet further states that a letter recovered from one of the arrested accused revealed that a conspiracy was being framed to plan a Rajiv Gandhi like assassination to take down Prime Minister Narendra Modi.