[Bhima Koregaon] Premature to challenge sanction of Maharashtra government: Pune Police to Bombay High Court in Rona Wilson plea

The Pune Police informed the Bombay High Court that the petition filed by Bhima Koregaon accused Rona Wilson challenging the sanction granted by the Maharashtra government was premature and should be raised at the time of trial of the case. .This was stated in the affidavit filed by the Pune Police in Wilson's plea, which also seeks quashing of the case against him as well as compensation for malicious prosecution, defamation and harassment..The affidavit stated that while the sanction had been correctly given by the sanctioning authority, this was a premature stage to contend that the sanction was improper. "If at all the petitioner wants to contend that the sanction is not proper and the authority granting the sanction has not followed the proper procedure, it is necessary to give opportunity of being heard to the sanctioning authority and the prosecution at the time of trial." .The caste-based violence that took place on January 1, 2018 in Pune immediately after the 200th commemoration of the battle of Bhima Koregaon was being investigated by the State police before the case was transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in January 2020. Various rights activists, academicians, etc have been accused and charged under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in the case..The affidavit filed by Deputy Commissioner of Pune Police, Shrinivas Murlidhar Ghadge stated that sanction had been obtained from the Maharashtra government in 2018 to prosecute the accused persons including Wilson, in compliance of Section 45 of the UAPA. .Such sanction was obtained after going through the material and electronic data collected after investigation, the affidavit stated. After obtaining such sanction, two chargesheets were filed by the police under sections of the Indian Penal Code and the UAPA..The police's affidavit opposed Wilson's petition on the following grounds, amongst others:That the petition relied upon disputed questions of fact which could not be entertained in a writ petition. That there was an alternate remedy available to Wilson, which is to file an application seeking discharge under Section 227 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).That the report of US-based forensic consulting firm, Arsenal Consulting, relied upon by Wilson in his petition did not form a part of the chargesheet and the only avenue to rely on the same was at the time of leading evidence during trial.That the US-based firm had no locus to give an opinion without permission of the Court.That after cognizance has been taken of the chargesheets, the present petition is only filed to cause delay in the trial.That the contentions in Wilson's petition pertaining to fabrication of documents, planting of false evidence and scant regard to procedure are uncalled for at this stage..In May this year, NIA told the Bombay High Court that the Arsenal Consulting report was not part of the chargesheet filed in the case and cannot, therefore, be relied upon by the accused to seek quashing of the chargesheet..Arsenal Consulting had prepared the report after Wilson through his lawyers approached the America Bar Association (ABA) to help conduct an independent forensic analysis of the clone copy of electronic copies which were allegedly provided to him a year after filing of the chargesheet..As per Arsenal's report, an attacker deployed a malware named NetWire with which he initially subjected Wilson to surveillance and later delivered the incriminating documents to his computer.This was done after a series of suspicious emails were sent by someone using Dr. Varavara Rao's email account. 82-year-old Rao is a co-accused in the case.As per the report, the emails contained a particular document, which once opened by Wilson, planted a trojan (digital malware) on his computer. Five such trojan samples were found by Arsenal on Wilson's computer..On the basis of this report, Wilson then approached the High Court seeking quashing of the case under Section 482 CrPC..[Bhima Koregaon case] Computer of Rona Wilson was compromised, malware planted from outside: US Forensic Firm report