The Bombay High Court on Tuesday granted bail to activist Gautam Navlakha in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case. A division bench said Navlakha's plea requesting bail was allowed. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) asked the court to stay the operation of the order for six weeks so that it could file an appeal in the Supreme Court (SC). In November 2023, the top court allowed Navlakha, who was arrested in August 2018, to be placed under house arrest.
Here are the details on Gautam Navlakha and the charges against him:
Who is Gautam Navlakha?
Navlakha is a journalist and a human rights activist who was a columnist at Newsclick and was formerly an editorial consultant with Economic and Political Weekly. Police have accused Navlakha, columnist Anand Teltumbde, and nine others of being responsible for the Bhima Koregaon violence and having links to the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).
He unsuccessfully appealed to courts in Maharashtra to quash the investigation throughout 2018 and 2019. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) took over his case from the police In January 2020. In March 2020, the Supreme Court ordered him to surrender to the agency, after which he turned himself in.
In November, 2022, Navlakha was moved from prison to house arrest in Navi Mumbai on medical grounds. In September 2023, the top court said keeping Navlakha under house arrest in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist link case further will set a "wrong precedent."
What is Bhima Koregaon case?
January 1, 2018, the day of the bicentenary celebrations of the Bhima Koregaon battle, was marked by violence leading to death of one person and injuries to several others. Several activists were arrested by the police on allegations of having "Maoist links" after an initial investigation. The police alleged that activists funded the Elgar Parishad meeting on December 31, 2017, where inflammatory speeches were made, begetting the violence.
Writer and poet Varavara Rao, lawyer and activist Sudha Bhardwaj, academic and activist Vernon Gonsalves, and human rights activists Arun Ferreira were arrested by police in 2019.
What are the charges against Gautam Navlakha?
Navlakha was arrested by the NIA in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case. In its 10,000-page chargesheet, the NIA said that Navlakha was in touch with Kashmiri separatists, Pakistan's spy agency and Maoist extremists. The NIA said that it had found links between Navlakha and Ghulm Nabi Fai, an active member of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Navlakha visited the US thrice during 2010-11 to address the Kashmiri American Council and also wrote to a US judge arguing for Fai's clemency after he was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2011, the agency alleged.
According to NIA officials, Navlakha's links with Maoist and ISI were proved through the documents seized from the digital devices he owned. "Gautam Navlakha delivered speeches at different forums and programmes on many issues related to the Kashmir separatist movement and Maoist movement and supported it. During scrutiny of the documents seized from accused Navlakha, it is evident that they are related to CPI (Maoist) strategic documents, documents in connection with the formation of the CPI (Maoist) party," the agency said.
