New Delhi: Newly-appointed Justice S Ravindra Bhat became the fifth Supreme Court judge Thursday to recuse himself from hearing the plea filed by civil rights activist Gautam Navlakha, who has challenged the Bombay High Court order refusing to quash an FIR lodged against him in the Koregaon Bhima violence case.
Justice Bhat, who was on the bench with Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Vineet Saran, did not cite a reason for his recusal.
On 30 September, Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi had recused himself from hearing Navlakha’s plea. Again, on 1 October, three judges of a bench — Justice N.V. Ramana, Justice R Subhash Reddy and Justice B.R. Gavai — had also recused themselves from hearing the matter.
Navlakha and four other activists — Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Sudha Bharadwaj — were booked by the Pune police in January 2018 after an Elgar Parishad meeting on 31 December 2017 allegedly triggered violence in the Koregaon-Bhima village the next day.
With the case now looking at an inevitable delay, the SC assured Navlakha’s counsel that his plea will be heard by another bench Friday since the three-week protection given to him by the Bombay High Court was expiring on 4 October. He is being represented by senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Nitya Ramakrishnan.
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The case against Navlakha
The Bombay HC had on 13 September refused to quash the FIR against Navlakha who has been accused of having Maoist links. The high court had then said there was sufficient material for the probe to continue against the activist.
It had, however, extended the protection from arrest to Navlakha for a period of three weeks to enable him to approach the SC in order to file an appeal against its order. The court had also stated that observations in its order were of preliminary nature and that it should not influence the trial court’s decision in the matter.
Navlakha was booked under provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and sections 121 (waging or attempting to wage war, or abetting waging of war against the nation), 121(a) (conspiracy to commit offences under IPC section 121) and 124 (sedition) of the Indian Penal Code.
The Pune police had earlier informed the Bombay HC of several letters that were exchanged among CPI (Maoist) members, a critical report that was written by a CPI (M) member allegedly elaborating on Navlakha’s “deep-rooted” involvement in the party and a copy of the Strategy and Tactics of Indian Revolution, in addition to documents submitted by the state in a sealed envelope.
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With inputs from PTI