Bhima Koregaon: Gautam Navlakha gets bail as Supreme Court lifts stay on Bombay High Court order

Gautam Navlakha, accused in the Bhima Koregaon violence case of 2018, got bail on Tuesday after the Supreme Court lifted the stay on the Bombay High Court order granting bail to the activist. (Gautam Navlakha v National Investigation Agency and anr).A Bench of Justices MM Sundresh and SVN Bhatti refrained from extending the stay as the High Court order was detailed, and because the trial would take years to complete."Prima facie, we are of the view that there is no need to extend the interim order of stay as the appellant has been under incarceration for more than four years. Admittedly, the charges are yet to be framed ... without going into the respective contentions at length, we are not inclined to extend the stay. We have also taken note of the fact that by way of a detailed judgment, this Court has granted bail to the co-accused. Continuing the house arrest would also lead to unnecessary expenditure", the Court said..The Court was hearing the NIA's appeal against the Bombay High Court's December 2023 order that granted bail to Navlakha.The activist's plea concerning the terms of his house arrest was being heard along with the bail matter.The Bench had in April remarked that the activist could not escape his liability to pay security costs for his house arrest, after being informed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) that Navlakha owed the agency about ₹1.64 crore..During the hearing today, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) SV Raju, appearing for the NIA with Advocate Kanu Agarwal, claimed that the dues owed to it by Navlakha had risen to about ₹1.75 crore.In response, Justice Sundresh remarked that Navlakha had remained incarcerated for a long time. He suggested lifting the stay as it would also solve the issue of the rising dues.Senior Advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan, appearing for Navlakha with Advocate Stuti Rai, contested the pending dues cited.Eventually, the Court ordered Navlakha to deposit ₹20 lakhs and listed the challenges by NIA for final hearing..Navlakha, who is a human rights activist and the former Secretary of the People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR), was arrested in August 2018.Though he was lodged in prison initially, he was later shifted to his house and placed under house arrest in November 2022 after the Supreme Court allowed his plea for the same, on the ground of his advanced age.He has since been under house arrest in Navi Mumbai.Later, the Bombay High Court granted him regular bail but stayed that order for three weeks to enable NIA's appeal before the apex court. The stay later continued to be extended before the same was lifted by the top court today.Along with ASG Raju, advocate Arvind Kumar Sharma also appeared for the NIA.Standing Counsel Aaditya Aniruddha Pande appeared for the Maharashtra government.Advocates Shadan Farasat and Natasha Maheshwari also appeared for Navlakha..[Read order]