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Supreme Court allows Gautam Navlakha to be shifted to house arrest from jail for 1 month

10/11/2022 Asha

by Bar & Bench (Nov 10, 2022):
#BREAKING Supreme Court allows Gautam Navlakha plea for house arrest instead of being lodged in jail.
Bench led by Justice KM Joseph permits house arrest for a month subject to conditions.

Supreme Court allows Gautam Navlakha’s plea seeking house arrest

10/11/2022

The Leaflet / by Sarah Thanawala

On Thursday, in Gautam Navlakha versus National Investigation Agency and Anr., a division bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Justices K.M. Joseph and Hrishikesh Roy, allowed the plea to place the petitioner, Gautam Navlakha, under house arrest for a period of one month subject to stringent restrictions and conditions.
Journalist and human rights activist Navlakha, an accused in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case, is charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (‘UAPA’). During his custody as an undertrial prisoner, a charge sheet was filed on October 9, 2020, and charges are yet to be filed by the court. The petitioner, in custody since April 2020, stands accused along with 15 others. He is currently lodged at Taloja jail in Mumbai, awaiting trial.
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Supreme Court allows Gautam Navlakha to be shifted to house arrest from jail for 1 month

10/11/2022

Bar & Bench / by Abhimanyu Hazarika

The Court directed that Navlakha shall not be permitted to use computer, internet or any other communication device while under house arrest.
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed a plea filed by Bhima Koregaon accused Gautam Navlakha to be shifted from jail to house arrest for a month.
Navlakha has to deposit an amount of ₹2.4 lakh as expenses for his security cover when he is under house arrest, a bench of Justices KM Joseph and Hrishikesh Roy ordered.
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Supreme Court Allows Transfer Of Bhima Koregaon Accused Gautam Navlakha To House Arrest For One Month, Imposes Conditions

10/11/2022

Live Law / by Livelaw News Network

The Supreme Court has ordered that 73-year-old human rights activist Gautam Navlakha, who is in custody in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case, be transferred to house arrest within 48 hours on account of his medical condition. The order is interim in nature and will be reviewed after one month.
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Supreme Court Allows Transfer Of Gautam Navlakha To House Arrest For One Month [VIDEO]

Live Law / by Aaratrika Bhaumik

en | 5:37min | 2022
Watch video

SC allows Gautam Navlakha to be under house arrest

10/11/2022

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

The 70-year-old activist had cited ill health and poor facilities in prison as the reasons behind his transfer from Taloja Jail.
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed jailed activist Gautam Navlakha to be under house arrest for a month, Live Law reported. Navlakha had filed a plea seeking to be shifted from jail on grounds of ill health and poor facilities in prison.
A bench headed by Justice KM Joseph ordered jail authorities to carry out the necessary evaluation of the premises where Navlakha will be kept and directed them to shift him within 48 hours.
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Live Thread: #SupremeCourt continues hearing plea by Gautam Navlalha seeking house arrest

10/11/2022

By Bar & Bench – Live Threads

#SupremeCourt continues hearing plea by Gautam Navlalha seeking house arrest.
ASG SV Raju: There’s a twist in the tale. We have reason to believe that the medical report is tainted. The doctor at Jaslok hospital is his sister’s husband.
Adv: That was never a secret.
ASG: That doctor has a senior position. Please see the medical report. We are investigating.
Justice Roy: You are trying to make an argument of prejudice, his was one of many specialists’ opinions. If one of them is related will it make the report biased? Please be responsible with your arguments.
…
SC: you can deposit 2,40,000 and then have it refunded if you are acquitted.
Sibal: But my lords, that deposit will then keep increasing.
But we will deposit.
…
Order: We would this think that he should be allowed to be placed for house arrest for a period of one month.

Read full thread

Gautam Navlakha gets Supreme Court relief, to be shifted to house arrest

10/11/2022

The Indian Express / by Express Web Desk

Earlier, the NIA opposed Gautam Navlakha’s plea to be shifted to house arrest, claiming that he is “in touch with Kashmiri extremists” and Pakistani intelligence agency “ISI”.
The Supreme Court Thursday allowed Bhima Koregaon violence case accused Gautam Navlakha to be shifted to house arrest.
In its order, the bench noted, “We consider it appropriate to grant house arrest given his age. Still further, our attention is drawn to the multiple medical problems the petitioner is faced with, and that charges have not been framed in a trial that will not happen in the foreseeable future.”
Read more

Also read:
● Who is Gautam Navlakha, soon to be under house arrest after Supreme Court relief? (The Indian Express / Nov 2022)
● Relatives of BK16 Flag Prison Authorities’ ‘Criminal Negligence’ and Deteriorating Health of Undertrials (Newsclick / Sep 2022)

4 years, 16 arrests and no framing of charges / Treatment, straw, books … things BK16 have asked courts for

10/11/2022 Asha

4 years, 16 arrests and no framing of charges: The many twist and turns of Elgaar Parishad case

10/11/2022

The Indian Express / by Sadaf Modak

With trial yet to begin, the Supreme Court recently asked the NIA court to expedite framing of charges in 2018 case
Gautam Navlakha, an accused in the Elgaar Parishad case, was allowed on Thursday to be shifted to house arrest after he filed a plea in the Supreme Court considering his health.
On August 18, the Supreme Court directed the special court in Mumbai conducting the trial in the Elgaar Parishad case to decide on framing of charges and discharge pleas of the accused within three months. The delay in the framing of charges has meant that four years after the Pune Police made nine arrests and the National Investigation Agency made seven arrests in the case, the trial in the 2018 case is yet to begin.
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Treatment, straw, books… things Bhima Koregaon accused have asked courts for

10/11/2022

The New India Express / by pti

In December 2020, Navlakha’s partner Sahba Husain said the former’s spectacles were stolen in jail and when his family sent him a new pair, the jail authorities refused to accept them.
The Supreme Court order permitting jailed activist Gautam Navlakha to be kept under house arrest for a month has brought to the fore several applications filed by the accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case lamenting lack of facilities in jail and denial of access to the same.
Besides seeking medical treatment, the accused in the case have time and again approached courts for permission to get books, chairs, drinking straws, spectacles and mosquito nets inside the prison have asked courts for.
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Supreme Court’s Concerns Regarding the Health of Gautam Navlakha Are Widely Shared

10/11/2022

Countercurrrents / by Bharat Dogra

The concerns expressed by a Supreme Court Bench on November 9 regarding the health of an elderly political prisoner Gautam Navlakha have been widely appreciated in the country. Justice Hrishikesh Roy found it disturbing that hardly any progress had been made since the charge-sheet against him was filed in October 2020 ( over two years ago). Justice K.M. Joseph stated, “ He is a 70 year old man. He is not in the best of health. We don’t know how long he will live.”
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Gautam Navlakha Shifted To House Arrest, Who Are The Other Bhima-Koregaon Accused?

10/11/2022

Outlook India / by Outlook Web Desk

Gautam Navlakha, 70, has been in custody since April 14, 2020, and was lodged in Taloja prison in Navi Mumbai in connection with the Elgar Parishad-Maoist link case.
Even as activists, civil society members friends and family of jailed activist Gautam Navlakha celebrated the Supreme Court order to allow his plea to be placed on house arrest, many of the 15 activists, teachers and social workers accused and arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case continue to languish in jail.
Read more

Also read:
● Relatives of BK16 Flag Prison Authorities’ ‘Criminal Negligence’ and Deteriorating Health of Undertrials (Newsclick / Sep 2022)
● Stop Denying Political Prisoners the Right to Healthcare in Jails (Peoples Union for Democratic Rights / Sep 2022)
● Supreme Court directs trial court to expeditiously frame charges and decide discharge pleas (The Leaflet / Aug 2022)
● As Bhima Koregaon case completes its fourth anniversary, State reprisal is writ large in its twists and turns (The Leaflet / June 2022)

We Are Considering To Send Him On House Arrest: Supreme Court To NIA In Gautam Navlakha’s Plea

09/11/2022 Asha

‘We Are Considering To Send Him On House Arrest, Tell Us What Are The Conditions To Be Imposed’? Supreme Court To NIA In Gautam Navlakha’s Plea

09/11/2022

Live Law / by Livelaw News Network

The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce tomorrow the order on the application moved by Bhima Koregaon case accused Gautam Navlakha seeking transfer to house arrest on account of his medical condition.
“This Court has considered house arrest as a form of custody… All kinds of restrictions. We will try out. He’s not in the best of health,” the Top Court said after an hour-long hearing.
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The corrupt destroy the country, Supreme Court counters government in Gautam Navlakha case

09/11/2022

The Hindu / by Krishnadas Rajagopal

Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju had said that people like activist Navlakha want to destroy the country
A Supreme Court Bench stated on November 9 that it is corrupt who destroy the country, in a sharp response to the government’s claim that people like activist Gautam Navlakha, who is charged under UAPA in the Bhima Koregaon case for alleged Maoist links, “want to destroy the country and their ideology is that type”.
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SC Says It May Put Gautam Navlakha Under House Arrest

09/11/2022

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

The top court asked the National Investigation Agency to inform it about the kind of restrictions that should be enforced while the activist is under house arrest.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday indicated that it may place activist Gautam Navlakha, arrested in the Elgar Parishad case, under house arrest, asking the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to inform it about the kind of restrictions that should be enforced.
The top court asked additional solicitor general (ASG) S.V. Raju, appearing for the NIA, to seek instructions and inform it.
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#SupremeCourt hearing plea by activist Gautam Navlakha

Thread by Bar & Bench – Live Threads (Nov 9, 2022:)

#SupremeCourt hearing plea by activist Gautam Navlakha, accused in #BhimaKoregaon case, seeking house arrest

Sr Adv Kapil Sibal: Medical reports show he cannot receive the treatment needed in jail. [Reads from reports]

ASG SV Raju: Only got them today. Will need time to examine. Sibal continues reading
…

Read full thread

by The Times of India (Nov 9, 2022):
SC asks NIA to brief the court tomorrow on what kind of restrictions it wanted for social activist Gautam Navlakha if he is allowed to come out of jail and be kept under house arrest

Also read:
● Supreme Court directs parties to inspect Gautam Navlakha’s medical reports (The Leaflet / Oct 2022)

A Govt of India move to ‘force’ journos to join cacophony of state propaganda: CASR

06/11/2022 Asha

‘Disproportionate and Politically Motivated’: Diasporic Outfits Condemn Police Raids on ‘The Wire’

05/11/2022

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

As many as 21 Indian diasporic organisations from across the globe saw the raids on ‘The Wire’ as part of an “ongoing deterioration of journalistic and press freedoms in India”.

We Stand with The Wire
We are writing as diasporic Indian organizations and allies to express our solidarity with The Wire. We strongly condemn the witch hunt to which they are being subjected by the state.
… Egregiously, the phones and laptops of the four Wire editors, the accountant, and the business officer were seized without being sealed and without provision of the hashtag value by the authorities for the seized devices at the time of the seizures. The hash value is the single most important forensic evidence that captures the total state of the electronic devices at the time of seizure. It allows for forensic experts to determine whether any tampering of the device took place after seizure. In short, the hashtag ensures the integrity of the stored data. Given the emerging evidence around electronic surveillance and the reports of planted and ‘fabricated’ evidence used to implicate political prisoners such as the Bhima Koregaon 16, we are highly concerned about any claims by authorities based on the data on the above devices.
Read full statement

A Govt of India move to ‘force’ journos to join cacophony of state propaganda: CASR

05/11/2022

Counterview / by Campaign Against State Repression (CASR)

The Campaign Against State Repression (CASR) condemns the raids carried out by Delhi Police at mid night on the house of the various editors of The Wire and its office based in Delhi, on the complaint of BJP Spokesperson Amit Malviya pertaining to series of articles about Amit Malviya enjoying special censorship on the contents being published on social media company named ‘Meta’.

… Be it in the arrest of academics, activists, lawyers, journalists and poets in the Elgaar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case or the incarceration of journalist Rupesh Kumar Singh, Siddiqui Kappan, Fahad Shah of ‘Kasmir Walla’, Asif Sultan and now several more, it is evident that the State is becoming more and more intolerant of any critical voice or dissent. At such times, it is imperative that democratic and progressive voices speak out, else risk being silenced forever.
Read full statement

Varavara Rao: The Conscience of Our Time / Red roses to the People’s Poet

04/11/2022 Asha

Varavara Rao: The Conscience of Our Time

03/11/2022

Countercurrennts / by Moumita Alam

Two districts of Gujarat have begun to grant citizenship to minorities (Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians) from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. More than hundreds drowned in Morbi, Gujarat in the moribund madness we call celebration. We are at the pedestal in the Global Hunger Index. Everyday capitalism is devouring our air, water, and land. And the big giant 56 is roaring at the Naxals both with a gun and pen. He consciously or unconsciously acknowledges that the pen has the same power as the gun!
It’s this fear that has put brilliant minds behind bars. But are we not also within bars too? Invisible wires have enslaved us.
Read more

Red roses to the People’s Poet. The fight is on!

03/11/2022

By Release The Poet

en | 1:42min | 2022
Listen to the poem

Also read:
● Can’t Allow Varavara Rao To Stay In Hyderabad For Three Months For Cataract Treatment, Will Delay Framing of Charges: NIA Court (Live Law / Sep 2022)
● Supreme Court directs trial court to expeditiously frame charges and decide discharge pleas (The Leaflet / Aug 2022)

Police officer who probed case files affidavit before Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry

02/11/2022 Asha

The Indian Express / by Chandan Haygunde

Senior police officer Shivaji Pawar, who is currently the deputy director (administration) of Maharashtra Police Academy, Nashik, is likely to be called before the commission to record his evidence.
Senior police officer Shivaji Pawar, who had investigated the Elgaar Parishad case in Maharashtra, submitted his affidavit before the Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry on Monday, advocate Shishir Hiray, who represents the state, said.
Read more

Also read:
● Report links Pune cop to hacking bid on Bhima Koregaon accused (Hindustan Times / June 2022)
● Police Linked to Hacking Campaign to Frame Indian Activists (Wired.com / June 2022)
● As Bhima Koregaon case completes its fourth anniversary, State reprisal is writ large in its twists and turns (The Leaflet / June 2022)

Report Release: In the Name of Development / Snooping on Civil Society

29/10/2022 Asha

India Trains Its Sights on Dissent in Chhattisgarh – Snooping on Civil Society

28/10/2022

Voelkerrechtsblog / by Allison West

Development in the form of profit-driven resource exploitation ventures in India’s central state of Chhattisgarh, led by corporations and facilitated by the state, have wreaked havoc on the lives and livelihoods of the region’s indigenous Adivasi peoples. In the face of widespread dispossession, corporate land grabs, environmental degradation and militarized policing in Chhattisgarh, Adivasi activists and organized civil society play a vital role in monitoring, documenting and challenging ongoing human rights violations on the ground…
In 2020, Amnesty International and Citizen Lab uncovered a coordinated spyware campaign targeting nine human rights defenders in India, including several active in Chhattisgarh. Between January and October 2019, the targets received spearphishing emails with malicious links that, if opened, would have installed NetWire, a commercially manufactured Windows spyware that monitors a user’s actions and communications..
The common link between the human rights defenders targeted in the NetWire attack seemed to be a record of speaking out on behalf of those imprisoned in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon Case.
Read more

Report Release: In the Name of Development – Indigenous Rights Violations and Shrinking Space in Chhattisgarh

03/11/2022

By India Justice Project & ECCHR

The report presents insights into the ongoing assault by the Indian state and powerful corporations on the indigenous peoples of the country through a case study of Chhattisgarh. In particular, the report highlights the legal and institutional means through which powerful state, military and corporate actors appropriate land and shrink space for Adivasi rights and resistance in Chhattisgarh.
Read full report (PDF, 72 pages)

Also read:
● DISINHERITING ADIVASIS – THE GADCHIROLI GAME PLAN (KAFILA / June 2018)
● Mining In Gadchiroli – Building A Castle Of Injustices (Countercurrents / June 2017)

In Criminalising Political Action, Judges Are Helping the State Bring Politics Into India’s Court

29/10/2022 Asha

The Wire / by Shahrukh Alam

I wish they’d recognise the arrests of political prisoners as a systemic pro-establishment political act, and then tell the state – and not the defendants – to not bring politics to the courts.
‘Submissions should be limited to law and not be political.’
This is a common refrain in the courts.
Yet the prosecuting state’s behaviour towards its prisoners has been rather erratic. On the one hand, it is seen to oppose, tooth and nail, the grant of bail to political activists such as Jyoti Jagtap, or Umar Khalid, alleged to have ‘ignited passions’ and provoked violence (in others).
Read more

Also read:
● Kabir Kala Manch Incited Hatred By Ridiculing Phrases Acche Din, Demonetization In Plays: Bombay HC [read order] (Live Law / Oct 2022)
● Supreme Court’s suspension of Dr. G.N. Saibaba’s acquittal: ‘Technical grounds are also substantive’, says senior advocate, Mihir Desai (The Leaflet / Oct 2022)

New generation freedom fighters, GN Saibaba, others are victims of ‘state terrorism’

29/10/2022 Asha

Counterview / by Counterview Desk

A Campaign Against State Repression (CASR) meeting on 28th October at the Gandhi Peace foundation on, ‘Dangerous Brain: Saibaba and Others’, held to scrutinise the Supreme Court judgement suspending Bombay High Court’s acquittal order of Prof GN Saibaba, Hem Mishra, Prashant Rahi, Vijay Tirki and Mahesh Tikri, has demanded that the Apex Court should uphold the Bombay High Court’s order granting acquittal to Saibaba and others…
Citing the case of Jyoti Jagtap, Apoorvanand said that she has been denied bail because she criticized the government through their songs, means that there is no space in this democracy for criticism of the government.
Read more

Also read:
● Inconsistencies in Bail Orders Mean Individual Liberty Is Now the Outcome of Judicial Lottery (The Wire / Oct 2022)

‘Release detainees of Bhima Koregaon case’

27/10/2022 Asha

The Tribune / by Tribune News Service

A special meeting of pro-people and democratic public organisations of Amritsar was held at Company Bagh in which it was decided to hold a convention on November 6 to demand the immediate release of intellectuals and social activists detained in Bhima Koregoan case.
Read more