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Gautam Navlakha cites Mumbai costs draining savings, seeks virtual hearing

Gautam Navlakha cites Mumbai costs draining savings, seeks virtual hearing

Bail ! Gautam with his partner Sabha Husain. May 2024.

India Today / by Vidya

Bombay High Court has directed the NIA to respond to Gautam Navlakha’s plea seeking permission to reside in Delhi and attend court via video conferencing.
The Bombay High Court on Friday directed the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to respond to a petition filed by activist and Elgar Parishad case accused Gautam Navlakha seeking permission to reside in Delhi and attend court proceedings through video conferencing.
Read more


Also read:
Mumbai court denies Elgar Parishad case accused’s plea to visit Delhi (India Today / Aug 2025)
Bhima Koregaon case: Court rejects activist Gautam Navlakha’s plea to live in Delhi (Scroll.in / Jun 2025)
Navlakha files application in court seeking permission to stay in Delhi (The Indian Express / Apr 2025)
Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon accused struggle to find house in city (Hindustan Times / Nov 2022)

Bombay High Court Reserves Order On Bail Plea Of Former DU Professor Hany Babu

Bombay High Court Reserves Order On Bail Plea Of Former DU Professor Hany Babu

Solidarity poster by @bakeryprasad

Bombay HC Reserves Order On Bail Plea Of Former DU Professor Hany Babu

04/10/2025

Free Press Journal / by Urvi Mahajan

The Bombay High Court on Friday reserved its order on the bail plea filed by former Delhi University professor Hany Babu, an accused in the Elgar Parishad–Maoist links case. A bench of Justices Ajey Gadkari and Ranjitsinha Bhonsale clarified that the order would not be on the merits of the case but on the question of the accused’s prolonged incarceration without trial.
The Bombay High Court on Friday reserved its order on the bail plea filed by former Delhi University professor Hany Babu, an accused in the Elgar Parishad–Maoist links case.
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Court to decide on professor Hany Babu’s bail, order reserved

03/10/2025

India Today / by Vidya

Senior advocate Yug Mohit Chaudhary, representing Hany Babu, mainly argued the plea on the ground of prolonged incarceration without trial. He pointed to other accused, such as Vernon Gonsalves, who had been granted bail by the Supreme Court on the same ground.
The Bombay High Court on Friday reserved its order on the bail plea of Delhi University English professor Hany Babu, who has been in prison for five years and two months in Pune’s Elgar Parishad case of 2018.
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Bombay High Court Reserves Order In Hany Babu’s Plea For Bail

03/10/2025

Live Law / by Narsi Benwal

The Bombay High Court on Friday closed for orders, the bail application filed by former Delhi University Professor Hany Babu, who has been booked for his alleged role in the Elgar Parishad – Bhima Koregaon case. A division bench of Justices Ajay Gadkari and Ranjitsinha Bhonsale closed the application filed by Babu, for orders.
Read more


Also read:
Why Hany Babu Writes From Prison (The Wire / Jul 2025)
SC Allows Hany Babu to Approach Trial or High Court For Bail (The Wire / Jul 2025)
How Long is Too Long? On the Maximum Period that an Undertrial Prisoner can be Detained (Constitutional Law and Philosophy | by Hany Babu & Surendra Gadling | Oct 2024)
Why the SC Judgment Granting Bail to Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira Is So Significant (The Wire / Jul 2023)

Bombay HC refuses to allow Anand Teltumbde to travel abroad for lectures

Bombay HC refuses to allow Anand Teltumbde to travel abroad for lectures

Bombay HC refuses to allow Bhima Koregaon accused Anand Teltumbde to travel abroad for lectures

01/10/2025

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

The National Investigation Agency had opposed the activist’s travel to Europe, raising concerns that he might abscond.
The Bombay High Court on Wednesday refused to allow writer and activist Anand Teltumbde, one of the 16 persons accused in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon case, to travel to Europe to deliver a series of lectures and seminars at universities, Live Law reported.
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Bombay High Court Refuses To Allow Dr Anand Teltumbde To Travel Abroad For Delivering Lecture

01/10/2025

Live Law / by Narsi Benwal

After the Bombay High Court on Wednesday expressed disinclination to permit rights’ activist Dr Anand Teltumbde to travel to Amsterdam and the United Kingdom for attending academic assignments, the accused in the Elgar Parishad – Bhima Koregaon case, withdrew his plea.
Read more


Teltumbde withdraws foreign travel plea after HC shows reluctance

01/10/2025

Hindustan Times / by pti

Elgar case: Teltumbde withdraws foreign travel plea after HC shows reluctance
Mumbai, Academician Anand Teltumbde, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, on Wednesday withdrew his petition seeking permission to travel abroad to deliver lectures after the Bombay High Court expressed its disinclination to allow it.
Read more


Also read:
Anti-terror agency seeks to seize Anand Teltumbde’s passport (India Today / Sep 2025)
NIA opposes Anand Teltumbde’s plea to travel abroad, cites risk of absconding (The Hindu / April 2025)
Will the bail granted to Anand Teltumbde help others in the Bhima Koregaon case to get out of jail? (Scroll.in / Nov 2022)

Video: Sudhir Dhawale on Mental Health Crisis in Indian Prisons / Lives Fading in Silence

Video: Sudhir Dhawale on Mental Health Crisis in Indian Prisons / Lives Fading in Silence

Video | Sudhir Dhawale Spoke With Outlook About Mental Health Crisis in Indian Prisons

01/10/2025

Outlook / by Priyanka Tupe


hindi /en | 46:58 | 2025
Indian Human Rights activist Sudhir Dhawale, imprisoned under UAPA in Bhima Koregaon case, exposes India’s prison mental health crisis: overcrowding, absent psychiatric care, caste-based labor, and systematic erosion of dignity.
Watch video


Taloja Jail: Lives Fading in Silence Behind Iron Walls

28/09/2025

Outlook / by Sudhir Dhawale

The author, who spent 10 years in jail, details the painful experiences of the inmates and the cold attitude of the authorities
Narya was a prisoner in Taloja Central Jail, Navi Mumbai. He was young and had already spent a few years in jail. With overgrown hair, a thick moustache and a full-grown beard, he was an eccentric who would roam the prison yard with complete disregard. Since he routinely got into quarrels with the jailer and physical fights with other inmates, people were wary of him.
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An Imprisoned Mind | Mental Health Challenges Among India’s Political Prisoners

28/09/2025

Outlook / by Apeksha Priyadarshini

In Indian prisons, where the incarcerated are robbed of basic human dignity, conversations about mental health are a formidable challenge.

The impact of the prison architecture on the mental health of prisoners is also brought up by Gautam Navlakha, a septuagenarian human rights defender and journalist, who was arrested in the now infamous ‘Bhima Koregaon’ (BK 16) case—where 16 activists, lawyers and teachers were charged with incitement to riots at Koregaon Bhima in January 2018, following the “Elgar Parishad’ conclave that they participated in on December 31, 2017 at Pune.
…. Jenny Rowena, partner of another BK 16 undertrial prisoner Prof Hany Babu, shares Navlakha’s views on what incarceration robs from an individual. Babu, who is also lodged in Taloja Central jail, completed five years of incarceration as an undertrial this July.
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Also read:

▪ The Cell and the Soul – A Prison Memoir


Author: Anand Teltumbde
Publishing Date: Sep 2025
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Pages: 256

Noted social activist Anand Teltumbde entered the Taloja Central Prison as accused number 10 in the Bhima Koregaon case and spent 31 months as an undertrial until he was released on bail. As an intellectual who was stripped of his freedom, he lays bares the chilling realities of India’s prisons in his gut-wrenching prison memoir. Part memoir, part diary, Cell and the Soul is a descent into the heart of India’s carceral state, ripping open the belly of the beast-the prison industrial complex-and exposing the brutal, pulsating injustice within.
Read more / order

Sudhir Dhawale: “This is a bigger prison” (The Caravan | by Sudhir Dhawale | Apr 2025)
Sudhir Dhawale interview: ‘The law remains blind to injustice even with the blindfold gone’ (Scroll.in / Feb 2025)
Sudhir Dhawale: ‘Never Imagined Meeting Hardened Criminals’ (Rediff.com / Jan 2025)
Some personal reflections on prison medical care (The Leaflet | by Vernon Gonsalves | Apr 2024)

NIA files plea to impound passports of Anand Teltumbde, Rona Wilson, Mahesh Raut, Gautam Navlakha, Hany Babu

NIA files plea to impound passports of Anand Teltumbde, Rona Wilson, Mahesh Raut, Gautam Navlakha, Hany Babu

Anti-terror agency seeks to seize Anand Teltumbde’s passport

30/09/2025

India Today / by Vidya

A total of 16 people were arrested in the Elgar Parishad case, which pertained to an event organised at Shaniwar Wada in Pune on the eve of the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Koregaon Bhima on December 31, 2017.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has filed an application before a special court in Mumbai, seeking directions to impound the passports of Anand Teltumbde, Rona Wilson, Mahesh Raut, Gautam Navlakha, and Hany Babu — the five accused in the 2018 Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.
Read more


NIA files plea to impound passports of 5 accused in Elgaar case

30/09/2025

The Indian Express / by Express News Service

Special public prosecutor Prakash Shetty on Monday moved the plea citing provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has filed a plea before the special court seeking directions to impound passports of five accused arrested in the Elgaar Parishad case. The court has directed the accused to file their replies.
… The court will likely hear the plea on October 9. The trial in the case is yet to begin.
Read more


Also read:
NIA opposes Anand Teltumbde’s plea to travel abroad, cites risk of absconding (The Hindu / April 2025)
Bhima-Koregaon case transferred to NIA to compromise independent probe: Front Line Defenders (Jan 2020)

Transfer of case to NIA | High Court questions Gadling’s plea, says accused can’t choose probe agency

Transfer of case to NIA | High Court questions Gadling’s plea, says accused can’t choose probe agency

Poster by #bakeryprasad

Hindustan Times / by Karuna Nidhi

On June 6, 2018, Gadling and Dhawale were arrested under stringent sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), for their alleged links with the Maoists and the conspiracy to incite violence in Bhima Koregaon
The Bombay High Court on Thursday questioned the maintainability of a petition filed by Bhima Koregaon conspiracy case accused Surendra Gadling and Sudhir Dhawale, contending the transfer of the case from the Pune police to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in January 2020 was politically motivated.
… The bench adjourned the matter for further hearing on October 9 after Talekar sought time to respond to the court’s query.
Read more


Also read:
Why caste Hindutva, not an Elgar conspiracy, is at the root of the Bhima Koregaon violence (The Polis Project / Feb 2025)
Surendra Gadling and Sudhir Dhawale Challenge Transfer of Elgar Parishad Probe to NIA (Gauri Lankesh News / Jul 2021)
‘Centre’s Decision to Hand Bhima Koregaon to NIA Unconstitutional’: Maha Home Minister (The Wire / Jan 2020)
Deputy CM raises doubts in case against 10 activists, seeks proof in 15 days (Scroll.in / Jan 2020)
Bhima-Koregaon case transferred to NIA to compromise independent probe: Front Line Defenders (Jan 2020)

‘I’m going to live to 185’: Anand Teltumbde remembers his friend Stan Swamy in his memoir

‘I’m going to live to 185’: Anand Teltumbde remembers his friend Stan Swamy in his memoir

Poster by #bakeryprasad

Scroll.in / by Anand Teltumbde

An excerpt from Teltumbde’s prison memoir ‘The Cell and the Soul: A Prison Memoir’.
I did not realise that when I said, “Don’t come back here,” to Stan while seeing him off at the gate of the jail hospital, it would prove ominous.
It was May 28, 2021, and Arun Ferreira and I drove him in a wheelchair to the gate of the jail hospital, extremely happy over the Bombay High Court order to shift him to the Holy Family Hospital, albeit for only 15 days.
Read more


The Cell and the Soul – A Prison Memoir


Author: Anand Teltumbde
Publishing Date: Sep 2025
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Pages: 256

Noted social activist Anand Teltumbde entered the Taloja Central Prison as accused number 10 in the Bhima Koregaon case and spent 31 months as an undertrial until he was released on bail. As an intellectual who was stripped of his freedom, he lays bares the chilling realities of India’s prisons in his gut-wrenching prison memoir. Part memoir, part diary, Cell and the Soul is a descent into the heart of India’s carceral state, ripping open the belly of the beast-the prison industrial complex-and exposing the brutal, pulsating injustice within.

Read more / order


Also read:
I saw firsthand how callous prison officials and their negligence led to Stan Swamy’s death (Scroll.in | by Arun Ferreira | Jul 2025)
Daring, Fearless and Kind, Father Stan Swamy Remains a Beacon of Resistance (The Wire | by Hany Babu, Jyoti Jagtap, Mahesh Raut, Ramesh Murlidhar Gaichor, Sagar Gorkhe, Surendra Gadling | Jul 2025)
Caged birds and prison songs: In chorus, Stan Swamy and the Bhima Koregaon accused kept hope alive (Scroll.in | by Vernon Gonsalves | Jul 2023)
How the system broke Stan Swamy: A cell mate recalls the activist’s last days in prison (Scroll.in | by Arun Ferreira | Aug 2021)

Supreme Court seeks explanation on delay in trial against Surendra Gadling

Supreme Court seeks explanation on delay in trial against Surendra Gadling

Supreme Court questions delay in trial of Surendra Gadling in 2016 Surjagarh mine arson case

25/09/2025

The Leaflet / by Parmod Kumar

“Why is the trial not going on, and for how many years can a person be kept in custody without trial?” the bench asked.
The Supreme Court yesterday expressed concern over the prolonged pendency of trial proceedings against advocate Surendra Gadling in the 2016 Surjagarh iron ore mine arson case and asked the Maharashtra government whether a person could be kept in custody as an undertrial for several years.
Read more


Explain delay in trial: Supreme Court to Maharashtra in Surendra Gadling bail case

24/09/2025

Bar & Bench / by Ritwik Choudhury

This was the 19th adjournment of Gadling’s bail plea, which has been pending since August 2023.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday pressed the State of Maharashtra to explain why the trial in the 2016 Surajgarh arson case has not begun despite human rights lawyer Surendra Gadling spending over six years in custody [Surendra Pundalik Gadling v. State of Maharashtra].
Read more


“How Long Can You Keep A Person In Custody Without Trial?”: SC Questions Delay In Trial Against Surendra Gadling

24/09/2025

Live Law / by Amisha Shrivastava

The Supreme Court on Wednesday (September 24) raised concerns over the prolonged pendency of trial proceedings against lawyer and activist Surendra Gadling in the 2016 Gadchiroli arson case.
A bench comprising Justice JK Maheshwari and Justice Vijay Bishnoi asked whether a person can be kept in custody as an undertrial for many years.

The matter will be next heard on October 28/29.
Read more


Supreme Court Seeks Explanation on Delayed Trial in 2016 Arson Case

24/09/2025

Devdiscourse / by Devdiscourse News Desk

The Supreme Court has questioned the delay in the trial of a 2016 arson case involving advocate Surendra Gadling and demanded an explanation from the Maharashtra government. Gadling has been incarcerated for over 6.7 years, accused of aiding Maoists in the Surjagarh iron ore mine incident.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court raised concerns over the prolonged trial of a 2016 arson case involving Surendra Gadling, an advocate accused of aiding Maoists in Maharashtra.
Read more


Also read:
6 yrs, no charges framed – Surendra Gadling stuck in trial limbo in 2016 Surajgarh arson case (The Print / Sep 2025)
In Surendra Gadling’s case, adjournment becomes the verdict (Frontline / Aug 2025)
How Long is Too Long? – On the Maximum Period that an Undertrial Prisoner can be Detained (Constitutional Law and Philosophy | by Hany Babu and Surendra Gadling | Oct 2024)
Surendra Gadling’s Computer Was Attacked, Incriminating Documents Planted: Arsenal Consulting (The Wire / July 2021)
DISINHERITING ADIVASIS – THE GADCHIROLI GAME PLAN (KAFILA / June 2018)

Interim bail for Mahesh Raut is not justice

Interim bail for Mahesh Raut is not justice

Mahesh Raut

The Indian Express / by Deeksha Dwivedi

Raut, the youngest accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, deserves bail, not a protracted legal battle
The Supreme Court of India’s September 16 order granting six weeks of interim bail to Mahesh Raut, one of the 16 arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case, is a study in judicial contradiction. The interim bail on medical grounds, though an act of compassion, paradoxically highlights legal injustice. To understand this, we must look beyond the interim bail and focus on the well-reasoned bail order granted by the Bombay High Court on September 21, 2023.
Read more


Also read:
Supreme Court grants six-week interim medical bail to Bhima Koregaon accused Mahesh Raut (Sabrangindia / Sep 2025)
Notes From Inside Taloja Prison (Outlook | by Mahesh Raut | Jun 2025)
Year after being granted bail, Mahesh Raut remains in jail as stay extended (The Indian Express / Sep 2024)
‘Ominous portents’: Why High Court staying its own bail orders in Bhima Koregaon case is troubling (Scroll.in / Dec 2023)
Bhima Koregaon Case: Mahesh Raut, youngest accused, granted bail by the Bombay HC! (SabrangIndia / Sep 2023)

NIA opposes plea to clear Stan Swamy’s name, says it would set wrong precedent

NIA opposes plea to clear Stan Swamy’s name, says it would set wrong precedent

PUDR campaign

Fr Stan Swamy can’t be declared innocent just because he’s dead: NIA

24/09/2025

Hindustan Times / by Karuna Nidhi

The petition was filed by Stan Swamy’s friend and fellow Jesuit priest Fr. Frazer Mascarenhas who retired in 2015 as Mumbai’s St. Xavier’s College principal
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday opposed a petition filed in the Bombay High Court seeking to remove the “odium” of criminal charges against Jesuit priest Father Stan Swamy who died in custody in July 2021 while awaiting trial in the Elgar Parishad case.
Read more


NIA opposes plea to clear Stan Swamy’s name, says it would set wrong precedent

23/09/2025

India Today / by Vidya

The petition sought a judicial inquiry into Stan Swamy’s death and requested that the “odium of guilty” attached to him be removed.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has opposed a petition filed in the Bombay High Court seeking to clear the name of late tribal rights activist Father Stan Swamy from the Elgar Parishad case, saying such a move would set a “wrong precedent.”
….
The court will take up the matter again after two weeks.
Read more


Also read:
I saw firsthand how callous prison officials and their negligence led to Stan Swamy’s death (Scroll.in | by Arun Ferreira | Jul 2025)
Daring, Fearless and Kind, Father Stan Swamy Remains a Beacon of Resistance (The Wire | by Hany Babu, Jyoti Jagtap, Mahesh Raut, Ramesh Murlidhar Gaichor, Sagar Gorkhe, Surendra Gadling | Jul 2025)
Jesuit Missions repeats call to clear Indian priest’s name (Indcatholic News / Jul 2024)