[Bhima Koregaon] Gautam Navlakha moves Supreme Court against rejection of default bail by Bombay High Court

Gautam Navlakha, accused in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence, has approached the Supreme Court against the rejection of his plea for default bail by Bombay High Court. .Navlakha's plea will be heard on March 3 by a three-judge Bench of Justices UU Lalit, Indira Banerjee and KM Joseph. .Navlakha has sought bail on the ground that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) failed to file its chargesheet within the prescribed upper-limit of 90 days as per Section 167(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC)..Navlakha had contended before the Bombay High Court that the period for which he was confined to his house under house arrest should be calculated as part of judicial custody and should be taken into account while deciding the custody period under Section 167(2). .The question before the Bombay High Court was whether the period of custody spent during house arrest constituted 'custody' for the purposes of section 167(2) of CrPC. .A Bench of Justices SS Shinde and MS Karnik of Bombay High Court had rejected the plea on February 8 on the ground that the period for which an accused is under illegal detention cannot be taken into account while computing the 90-day custody period for grant of default bail. .When authorisation by the Magistrate to keep Navlakha under house arrest was declared illegal by Delhi High Court consequently rendering the detention itself illegal, that period will not be part of the custody period for grant of statutory bail under Section 167 of he Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC)."It is not possible for us to fathom a situation where detention of the Appellant (Navlakha) though held to be illegal & unlawful rendering the authorisation by the Magistrate untenable should still be construed as an authorised detention for the purpose of Sub-Section (2) of Section 167 of the CrPC," the Court said.It, therefore, refused to interfere with the order of the special court which had earlier rejected Navlakha's plea..The Court further noted that during the period of house arrest, barring the lawyers and ordinary residents of the house, nobody else was allowed to meet him. NIA did not have any access to him or any occasion to interrogate him.“As the transit remand order was stayed, it cannot be said that the appellant was under detention of police for investigation,” the order stated..With regard to being entitled to statutory bail, the Court reasoned that the mandate under Section 167(2) was clear - that the basic requirement is that the detention of the accused in the custody has to be authorised by the Magistrate."It is not possible for us to construe any and every detention which may have resulted in deprivation of liberty of the accused to be an authorised detention by the Magistrate within the meaning of Section 167(2) of the CrPC," the High Court had concluded.