I’ve Won My Freedom and It Thrills Me: Activist Gautam Navlakha

Navlakha is a Delhi-based journalist, author, civil liberties and human rights activist.

(Photo: The Quint)

“From (the) Delhi High Court I have won my freedom and it thrills me no end,” said Gautam Navlakha, on Monday, 1 October, after the Delhi High Court released him from house arrest.
Gautam Navlakha is one of the five human rights activists who was arrested in connection with the Bhima-Koregaon case.

The High Court pointed out that the Supreme Court had already given him the liberty to approach the appropriate forum within four weeks to seek relief. Navlakha had simply availed of that liberty. 

According to the PTI report, the high court also quashed the trial court's transit remand order, which he had challenged before the matter was taken to the apex court.

A bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel also said that there was non-compliance of basic provisions of the Constitution and the CrPC which were mandatory in nature.

The court said Navlakha's detention has exceeded 24 hours, which was "untenable”.

In view of Section 56 read with Section 57 of the CrPC and absence of remand order of the CMM, the detention of the petitioner has clearly exceeded 24 hours which is untenable in law. Consequently the house arrest of the petitioner comes to an end now.

Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court made it clear that this order will not preclude the state of Maharashtra from proceeding further.

According to PTI, when the counsel for Maharashtra government sought the court to extend Navlakha's house arrest by two more days as the apex court has also extended it by four weeks, the bench said, the counsel has overlooked that the top court has passed this order to enable the activist to avail appropriate legal remedy.

Gautam Navlakha, and four other activists Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Sudha Bharadwaj, have been under arrest at their respective homes since 29 August.

The Supreme Court’s Ruling

In a 2:1 judgement on Friday, 28 September, the Supreme Court ordered that it would not order a special investigation into the case.

As reported by Scroll, the two judges forming the majority opinion – Justice Khanwilkar and outgoing CJI Dipak Misra – had said that there was no evidence in the petition of “mala fide exercise of power by the investigating officer.”

However, the majority opinion also said that the relevant jurisdictional courts alone can test the nature of evidence and provide any remedy.

(With inputs from PTI, Scroll.)