LI NETWORK
The Bombay High Court bench of Justices S S Shinde and M S Karnik was referring to the alleged theft of activist Gautam Navlakha’s spectacles inside the Taloja prison.
The HC called for the need to conduct a workshop for jail officials to sensitize them on the needs of prisoners.
The High Court observed that humanity is the most important.
Navlakha, whose specs got stolen from the jail, is an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.
A division bench said it is aware of how spectacles of Navlakha were stolen inside the jail, and the jail authorities denied to accept the new spectacles sent by his family through courier.
“Humanity is most important. Everything else will follow. Today, we learnt about Navlakha’s spectacles. This is the high time to conduct a workshop for even jail authorities,” Justice Shinde said.
“Can all these small items be denied? These are all humane considerations,” he added.
On Monday, Navlakha’s family members claimed that his spectacles were stolen from Taloja jail, where he was incarcerated.
They claimed that Navlakha is “almost blind” without the spectacles and, when they sent a pair of new spectacles to him by post earlier this month, the prison authorities refused to accept it and sent it back.
A statement circulated on Monday evening by Navlakha’s lawyers that were signed by the activist’s wife Sahba Husain read:
“Presently Gautam Navlakha is in acute distress, is unable to see things around him and consequently his blood pressure has shot up.”
The High Court was hearing two petitions filed by activists, Ramesh Gaichor and Sagar Gorkhe questioning their arrest by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.
Senior counsel Mihir Desai, representing Gaichor and Gorkhe, told the HC that the duo was arrested by the NIA only because they refused to make statements before a magistrate against the other accused in the case.
The petitions also demanded that the case should not be heard in Mumbai, but before the Special NIA court in Pune.
“The offence is alleged to have occurred in Pune. The case was initially held before a court in Pune. However, after the NIA took over the probe, it was transferred to the special NIA court in Mumbai even when there is a special NIA court in Pune,” Desai said.
NIA’s advocate Sandesh Patil sought time, following which the HC posted the matter for hearing on December 21.
The activist had been kept under house arrest between August 29 and October 1, 2018.
The case is regarding the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Maharashtra’s Pune district on December 31, 2017, which the police alleged was funded by Maoists.
According to the police charge sheet, the speeches made by some activists at the conclave provoked violence near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial on the outskirts of Pune city the next day.
The case was later handed over to NIA in which several activists and academicians have been named as accused.