Gautam Navlakha gets bail from Supreme Court; The bench said – the hearing will take many years, pay Rs 20 lakh for the house arrest bill

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (May 14) granted bail to Maharashtra activist Gautam Navlakha. The bench of Justice MM Sundaresh and Justice SVN Bhatti said – We do not see any reason to extend the stay period on the bail order of the High Court. It will take many years for the hearing of the entire case to end.

Actually, Navlakha is accused of giving an inflammatory speech in a program organized by Elgar Parishad in Pune in 2017. Due to this there was violence in Bhima-Koregaon. Navlakha was granted bail by the Bombay High Court, against which the NIA had filed a petition in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court had put a stay on the order of the Bombay High Court.

While granting bail today, the Supreme Court said that without discussing the entire matter in detail, there is no justification in imposing a stay on the decision of the High Court. Navlakha is granted bail, but he has to pay Rs 20 lakh for the security he received during house arrest.

Actually, it was Navlakha who had demanded house arrest after the arrest. Therefore, the court has asked him to pay the bill. In the last hearing held on April 9, NIA had demanded payment of Rs 1 crore 64 lakh from Navlakha.

Had paid Rs 10 lakh earlier
NIA lawyer Raju had said in the last hearing that many police personnel were deployed at the time of Navlakha’s house arrest. On this, Navlakha’s lawyer said that we have no problem in making the payment, but the money demanded in payment is a big issue. He further said that Navlakha had already paid Rs 10 lakh.

This is the whole matter
In 2017, violence broke out in Bhima-Koregaon after an inflammatory speech at a program organized by Elgar Parishad in Pune, Maharashtra. The police claimed that the organizers of the program had links with Naxalites.

After this violence, a case was registered against activist Gautam Navlakha in January 2018. Along with Navlakha, Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, Varshan Gonsalves and Sudha Bhardwaj were also found accused in this case. Gautam Navlakha was granted bail by the Bombay High Court in December 2023. On the request of NIA, the Supreme Court had stayed Navlakha’s bail.

Instead of being sent to jail, Navlakha had requested to be kept under house arrest. He had cited his own deteriorating health. On November 10, 2022, the Supreme Court had approved Navlakha to be kept under house arrest for 1 month. During house arrest, Navlakha was under 24-hour security of Maharashtra Police.

Center had said- his link with ISI
On Gautam Navlakha’s request for house arrest, Additional Solicitor General SV Raju had said in the Supreme Court in 2022 that he would not be able to control Gautam Navlakha during house arrest. He has links with Kashmiri terrorists and ISI. Let him stay in the hospital.

Relief from house arrest was given with these conditions
70-year-old Gautam Navlakha had told the court that he was suffering from skin allergies and dental problems and he wanted to get tested for suspected cancer. While giving relief to him, the court had set some conditions that, according to them, Navlakha will not be able to use mobile, laptop, computer to talk to anyone. Also will not be involved in any illegal activity. They will neither talk to the media nor contact people and witnesses related to the case. Permission to talk on mobile was given only once a day in the presence of police.