Posts

Anand Teltumbde challenges UAPA bail provisions before Bombay High Court

Anand Teltumbde challenges UAPA bail provisions before Bombay High Court

Anand Teltumbde challenges UAPA bail provisions before Bombay High Court

14/09/2021

Bar & Bench / by Neha Joshi

The Bench of Justices SS Shinde and NJ Jamadar issued notice to the NIA in the matter, with a direction to file a reply within three weeks.
Bhima Koregaon accused Anand Teltumbde has approached the Bombay High Court challenging bail provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and misuse of the term “front organisation” by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
Read more

Anand Teltumbde Moves Bombay High Court Challenging Stringent Bail Conditions & ‘Vague Terminology’ In UAPA

13/09/2021

Live Law / by Sharmeen Hakim

In a significant challenge, Professor Anand Teltumbde, an accused in the Bhima Koregaon- Elgar Parishad Caste Violence Case, has filed a writ petition in Bombay High Court to quash the terminology “and all its formations and front organizations” attached to the banned CPI (Maoist) in the first schedule of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
He claims that the “vagueness” of the terminology is used as a tool to circumvent due process wherein the State does not notify a particular organization as banned under the UAP Act but investigating agencies keep using the ‘front organization’ card with impunity and no oversight, especially to oppose bail.
Read more

Bombay HC seeks NIA response to Teltumbde’s pleas seeking bail, challenging UAPA

13/09/2021

The Indian Express / by Express News Service

A division bench of Justice S S Shinde and Justice N J Jamadar was on Monday hearing Anand Teltumbde’s appeal against the July order of the NIA court that rejected his bail application.
The Bombay High Court on Monday issued a notice to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), seeking its response to an appeal filed by Elgaar Parishad case accused Anand Teltumbde against rejection of his bail application by the special NIA court.
Read more

Teltumbde moves HC on UAPA”s ”frontal organisation” provisios

13/09/2021

Outlook / by pti

Anand Teltumbde, an accused in the Elgar Parishad Maoist links case, has filed a writ petition in Bombay High Court seeking that a provision under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) to brand certain groups as a front for banned or terrorist organisations be quashed as it was bad in law.
The UAPA provides for the declaration of an association as unlawful and for the listing of organisations in the first schedule of the Act as “terrorist organisations”.
Read more

Also read: ‘Mass frenzy has made India’s destroyers nationalists, its selfless servers traitors. Hope you speak out before your turn comes’ (The Polis Project / by Anand Teltumbde, April 14, 2020)

Podcast: The unravelling of a conspiracy: were the 16 charged with plotting to kill India’s prime minister framed? 

Podcast: The unravelling of a conspiracy: were the 16 charged with plotting to kill India’s prime minister framed? 


en | 35min | 2021

The Guardian / by Siddhartha Deb

In 2018, Indian police claimed to have uncovered a shocking plan to bring down the government. But there is mounting evidence that the initial conspiracy was a fiction – and the accused are victims of an elaborate plot.
Listen to the podcast

Pegasus Espionage: End the global trade in spyware (international campaign)

Pegasus Espionage: End the global trade in spyware (international campaign)

By Pressenza.com

An Indian-led initiative is trying to ensure that the scandal surrounding the large-scale use of NSO Group’s Pegasus cyber-weapon does not simply die down (as previous scandals have).
We reproduce this call to organise and continue campaigning around some basic principles.
Dear friends, dear friends,
Warm greetings from India. You all know that we are going through a steady erosion of our democracy led by a right wing (Hindu) government under the leadership of Narendra Modi. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), along with its vast network of ideological supporters in India and abroad, seeks to establish a Hindutva majoritarian state based on the deprivation of its social, religious and other minorities.
Read more

Also read: Leaked Data Shows Surveillance Net in Elgar Parishad Case May Have Crossed a Line (The Wire, July 18)

Income Tax department ‘surveys’ Newsclick, Newslaundry in tax case

Income Tax department ‘surveys’ Newsclick, Newslaundry in tax case

Economic Times / by pti

The Income Tax department on Friday conducted separate “survey operations” at the premises of online news portals Newsclick and Newslaundry here, officials said …
Newsclick and its founders were raided by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in February under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and that investigation is linked to alleged dubious foreign funding received by its registered company, which runs the news portal…
The ED had claimed that it is also probing Newsclick and its promoters for alleged transfer of certain funds to activist Gautam Navlakha, accused in the Elgar Parishad case of Maharashtra.
Read more

Also read: Intimidatory and Blatant Attack: Editors Guild on IT ‘Survey’ at NewsClick, Newslaundry [read full statement] (The Wire, Sep 11, 2021)

Who is a political prisoner? Time to define one

Who is a political prisoner? Time to define one

CivilSociety / by Nandita Haksar

There has been a great deal of anguish, angst and anger expressed at the death of Stanislaus Lourduswamy (1937–2021), popularly known as Stan Swamy, an Indian Roman Catholic priest, a member of the Jesuit order, and a tribal rights activist for many decades…
His death has drawn focus to the cruelty of the system which denied the right to die with dignity to a senior citizen who was suffering from Parkinson’s disease. However, the imprisonment of Stan Swamy and other political prisoners, including poets, journalists, bloggers, women activists, students, Dalits and Muslims, raises crucial questions. It is not just a humanitarian issue but a political one.
Read more

They Don’t Want us to Sing our Songs, Read our Poems

They Don’t Want us to Sing our Songs, Read our Poems

Newsclick / by Parth MN

Moved by the death of anti-caste activist Vira Sathidar, Ramesh Gaichor, an Elgar case accused, had penned a poem in Taloja prison, but the jail chief found it ‘objectionable’ for circulation. Gaichor has moved the court.
Civil and Sessions Court, complaining against one of its prisoners, Ramesh Gaichor. Gaichor, one of the 16 political prisoners arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case, had written a poem as a tribute to Vira Sathidar, a committed anti-caste activist and an Ambedkarite, who died of COVID-19 in April 2021.
Read more

He Won’t Survive Taloja Jail: Varavara Rao’s Kin Plead For Bail Extension

He Won’t Survive Taloja Jail: Varavara Rao’s Kin Plead For Bail Extension

The Quint / by Nikhila Henry

Telugu poet Varavara Rao suffers from umbilical hernia and cataract.
Since he was relieved on bail from Taloja Central Prison in February 2021, Varavara Rao (82), Telugu poet and activist, has been living in a rented house in Malad East, Mumbai with his 72-year-old wife, P Hemalatha.
Read more

Also read: NIA Opposes Extension Of Bail To Varavara Rao, Bombay High Court Extends Time To Surrender Till September 25 (Live Law, Sep 6, 2021)

Why Stan Swamy may have survived old India

Why Stan Swamy may have survived old India


Mumbai, July 7, 2021

The Caravan / by SNM Abdi

The December 1985 cover story of Illustrated Weekly was about six foreign missionaries who were served deportation orders in Madhya Pradesh. After the magazine covered it, politicians intervened to prevent their deportation. In the corridors of power back then, there was a genuine appreciation for priests and nuns who serve among the oppressed in India’s underdeveloped regions. Stan Swamy, who recently died in prison, did not get the same appreciation from either politicians or the media.
Read more

Video: One Year Of Incarceration – Free Sagar Gorkhe, Jyoti Jagtap and Ramesh Gaichor

Video: One Year Of Incarceration – Free Sagar Gorkhe, Jyoti Jagtap and Ramesh Gaichor

By Kabir Kala Manch

Performance


41 min | Sep 8, 2021

Protest against the arrest of Sagar Gorkhe, Jyoti Jagtap and Ramesh Gaichor
Watch video (Kabir Kala Manch fb page) here

The crushing power of street performances from the margins:
A profile of Kabir Kala Manch’s Sagar Gorkhe, Jyoti Jagtap and Ramesh Gaichor

By The Polis Project and maraa

Kabir Kala Manch
Kabir Kala Manch (KKM) is an urban grass-roots performance group at the helm of a socio-political movement rooted in cultural struggles of the most marginalized communities in India. KKM was formed by working-class youth from low-income Dalit and Bahujan caste communities in Pune as a response to the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat.
Read more

NIA Court Grants Rona Wilson Temporary Bail for Two Weeks Following Father’s Demise

NIA Court Grants Rona Wilson Temporary Bail for Two Weeks Following Father’s Demise

Live Law / by Live Law News Network

The Special NIA Court has granted temporary bail for two weeks to researcher Rona Wilson, an accused in the Bhima Koregaon- Elgar Parishad Case, following his father’s demise on August 18, 2021.
Special Judge DE Kothalikar directed him to be released on bail between September 13 – 27 on furnishing a PR Bond of Rs 50,000 with 2 sureties.
Read more