Mumbai:

The Bombay High Court on Monday dismissed a statutory bail appeal of activist Gautam Navlakha, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, saying it sees no reason to interfere with a special court’s “well-reasoned order” which earlier refused him bail.

A bench of Justices SS Shinde and MS Karnik said the 34 days that Navlakha spent under house arrest in 2018 could not be counted as the period spent in custody for consideration of the statutory bail.

The civil rights activist was arrested by the Pune police on August 28, 2018, but not taken in custody.

Between August 28 and October 1, 2018, Mr Navlakha was kept under house arrest.

He also spent 11 days in the NIA’s custody from April 14 to April 25 last year, after he surrendered following re-registration of an FIR against him in January 2020.

Since then, he has remained in judicial custody and is lodged at the Taloja jail in neighbouring Navi Mumbai.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is conducting a probe into the case.

Mr Navlakha approached the High Court last year, challenging the special NIA court’s order of July 12, 2020 that rejected his plea for statutory bail.

He had sought statutory or default bail on the ground that he had been in custody for over 90 days, but the prosecution failed to file a charge sheet in the case within this period.

His counsel, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, had argued that Mr Navlakha already spent 93 days in custody, including 34 days of house arrest between August 28 and October 1, 2018, and the high court must count house arrest as the period of custody.

Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, appearing for the NIA, had opposed the application, contending the special court had rightfully held that Mr Navlakha’s house arrest did not constitute detention.

He had said that during such house arrest, Mr Navlakha was not accessible for interrogation as he would have been if in regular custody.