[Bhima Koregaon] Bombay High Court reserves verdict in plea by Gautam Navlakha to be moved from prison to house arrest

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict in the plea filed by Bhima Koregaon accused Gautam Navlakha praying that he be transferred from Taloja prison and placed under house arrest instead [Gautam Navlakha v. National Investigation Agency & Anr.].Navlakha, who is human rights activist and former secretary of People's Union for Democratic Rights, was arrested in August 2018, but was initially placed under house arrest. He was later moved to Taloja Central Prison in Maharashtra in April 2020 after a Supreme Court order.Relying upon the Supreme Court judgment in his default bail case, Navlakha moved the High Court pointing out that he was being denied basic medical aid and other necessities in Taloja prison and was suffering great hardships at his advanced age. A Bench of Justices SB Shukre and GA Sanap reserved the plea for orders today after hearing counsel for Navlakha, National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Taloja Central Prison. .Advocate Yug Mohit Chaudhry for Navlakha made the following submissions: Navlakha had been under house arrest for 35 days before being protected from arrest by the Supreme Court thereafter for over 1 year and 7 months without any prejudice having been caused to the investigation agencies;There are no allegations against Navlakha of perpetrating a violent act or being involved in any violent act;Multiple chargesheets have been filed, evidence has been seized and hence, there is no question of him tampering with evidence;Keeping a 70-year-old in prison with the kind of facilities available will not benefit him during the trial;Navlakha has no criminal antecedents at all;If the Court finds it necessary, it could direct Navlakha to partly bear expenses of being detained at home..Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh appearing for NIA, opposed the petition on the following grounds: Navlakha ought to have approached the Special NIA Court with an application for house arrest before coming to High Court;Grounds raised in the plea are general and does not justify the prayer for house arrest;Order to keep him under house arrest will pose practical difficulties;The regular bail application filed by Navlakha is pending before the Special NIA Court, so the submissions like offences charged and delay in trial can be made before the Special Court as well;His medical bail application was rejected earlier without assigning proper reasons which was not challenged;His default bail application was also rejected, and the present application was indirectly seeking bail under the garb of house arrest; Jails have over 1000 people who are above 70 and if the present plea is allowed, others will also approach courts seeking house arrest because of ailments, and it will be difficult to implement those orders;There are practical difficulties in implementing the order, as the house logistics will have to be worked out, and also the aspect that the person accompanying him may be active on social media;.Additional Public Prosecutor Sangeeta Shinde appearing for Taloja Central Prison also responded to the allegations made by Navlakha about denying him facilities in prison.She stated that during COVID period, prison authorities had decided not to accept any parcels either by post or delivery to control spread of COVID in prisons. This was the reason why a book sent to Navlakha was returned, it was contended. The Court, however, refused to accept the submission. The Bench pointed out that the order of prison officials was unclear about the reason for returning the parcel and from the language used in the order, the prisons officials appeared to have considered the parcel as a "security threat".Shinde also submitted that Navlakha was living in a high security cell within the prison, where he was the only inmate in the cell and had an attached washroom, which he himself has to clean as per jail manual.