Bombay HC terms order rejecting Gautam Navlakha’s bail ‘cryptic’, directs lower court to decide afresh

Gautam Navlakha. File
| Photo Credit: Today News 24

The Bombay High Court on Thursday said the lower court’s order of rejecting activist Gautam Navlakha’s bail plea is “cryptic” and directed it to decide it afresh.

A division bench of Justices A.S. Gadkari and P.D. Naik replied to the bail application filed by Mr. Navlakha.

On November 19, 2022, Mr. Navlakha was transferred from the Taloja Central Jail to house arrest. He had surrendered before the National Investigation Agency (NIA) office in New Delhi on April 14, 2021, and was taken into judicial custody soon thereafter.

The court noted, “No reason of whatever nature is given by the trial court. It has not given reasoning as required under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) while rejecting his bail. It also appears that the Supreme Court’s order has not been considered while rejecting bail application. The reasoning state in order is very cryptic and there is no analysis of evidence relied on by prosecution in it,” the court added.

Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh, appearing for the NIA, also conceded that the bail application be remanded back to trial court. The Bench set aside the order of the trial court and directed it to conclude the application within four weeks.

Previously, the NIA had alleged that Mr. Navlakha has deep links with the Communist Party of India CPI (Maoist) and he espouses maoist ideology and anti-government utterances through his various lectures and videos. The objective of these activities was to overthrow the government, it said. Mr. Navlakha was assigned tasks such as uniting intellectuals against government forces and recruitment of cadres for guerrilla activities of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), the NIA alleged. He was not merely supporting a banned terror organisation but had an active role in furthering CPI (Maoist) activities, the NIA contends.