Says No Coercive Steps Against Teltumbde, Navlakha Till Nov 1

Mumbai:

The Bombay high court on Friday asked the Pune police to place before it the case diary as well as other documents in connection with the FIR in the Elgar Parishad case. A division bench of Justice Ranjit More and Justice Bharati Dangre extended its interim order asking police not to take any coercive steps against activist Gautam Navlakha and professor Anand Teltumbde till November 1, when it has scheduled the matter for further hearing.

“Is there any material to support this (allegations against the activists)?” asked the judges during the hearing of the petitions filed by Navlakha and Teltumbde seeking quashing of the proceedings against them in the Elgar Parishad case. Additional public prosecutor Aruna Pai responded saying that the police had evidence against the activists.

Senior advocate Mihir Desai, counsel for Teltumbde, and advocate Yug Chaudhary, counsel for Navlakha, had contended that the police had no material against them. Advocate Pai referred to letters recovered from the laptops of the accused to support the police case.

The Pune police had arrested activists Navlakha, Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Sudha Bharadwaj on August 28 for their alleged Maoist links. It is the police case that the Elgar Parishad was funded and supported by Maoists to create unrest and overthrow the government. In a similar connection, the police had arrested activists Surendra Gadling, Sudhir Dhavale, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut and Rona Wilson on June 6. The police had claimed documents, letters and emails allegedly revealed the activists’ role in facilitating supply of funds and weapons.

Anand Teltumbde, Gautam