The Supreme Court today (February 13, 2019) set aside the Bombay High Court’s order that had refused to grant 90-days extension of time to Maharashtra Police for filing the chargesheet in the Bhima Koregaon case.
The judgment delivered by a Bench comprising of Chief Justice of IndiaRanjan Gogoi and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and L. Nageswara Rao thereby upholds the extension of time granted to the Pune Police by the Special Court on September 2, 2018.
Further, the judgment also means that the arrested activists - Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, Rona Wilson, Mahesh Raut and Sudhir Dhavale – will not get the benefit of 'default bail' to seek release from custody.
The matter was pertaining to a request made by the Pune Police on August 30, 2018, to Special Court in Pune to extend the detention of those detained under Section 43-D of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967.
Earlier on October 29, 2018, the Supreme Court had stayed the High Court’s order which led to the detention of the accused persons and thereafter reserved its judgment on January 10, 2019.
The accused activists were arrested in connection to the event ‘Elgar Parishad’ held in Pune to mark the 200th anniversary of the Bhima Koregaon battle. This event was followed by violence and clashes.
The arrested lawyers and activists were charged under the UAPA and were alleged to have links with Left-wing extremist groups.
