Activists' arrest: Liberty cannot be sacrificed at the altar of conjectures, says Supreme Court

Sep 19 (AZINS) The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that it has to look with a hawk's eye at the case of five activists' arrest in connection with the Bhima-Koregaon violence as liberty cannot be sacrificed at the altar of conjectures. The top court also extended their house arrest till tomorrow.

A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, also comprising justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud, today examined the material that the Pune police had seized before the arrest of five activists - P Varavara Rao, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Sudha Bharadwaj and Gautam Navlakha - to see if the police action was justified.

"Our institutions must be robust enough to accommodate any dissent or opposition to the system or even to this court. We cannot sacrifice liberty at the altar of conjectures,", the bench said as it adjourned the hearing for tomorrow.

The top court told the Maharashtra government that there should be a clear-cut distinction between opposition and dissent on one hand and the attempts to create disturbance, law and order problems and overthrow the government on the other.

The government today submitted evidence to justify their arrest as the court head a plea filed by historian Romila Thapar and four others.

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Tushar Mehta, appearing for Maharashtra government, submitted evidence, including letters seized by the Pune police. The ASG also showed the court a notification which banned CPI(Maoist).

The ASG said that "as a nation, we should be concerned at this. It is too serious a matter. I request the court to form an opinion only after hearing the matter in full." To this, Justice Chandrachud said "Yes, we will do that, but our mind is human" and added, "We will look at this case with a hawks eye".

The court said it would go through the case diary and other relevant materials before forming any opinion.

Earlier, senior advocate Anand Grover had asked for the case to be sent to a Supreme Court-monitored SIT as he termed the raids and arrests illegal.

"Under the UAPA, authorisation has to be given to conduct raid and arrests. Here no authorisations were given. State hasn’t complied with any procedure while conducting these arrests," Grover said.

Arguing for petitioners, senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi said that "letters cited by the state are unsigned and undated and clearly fabricated."

"Petitioners are not above the law. We just want a neutral independent body to carry out a fair investigation so that justice can be meted out," he said.

At the last hearing in the case on September 17, the top court had said it may order a probe by a special investigating team (SIT) if it found that the evidence has been "cooked up". It had also said that the material, supporting the arrest of the five activists in the case, needed to be examined.

”Every criminal investigation is based on allegations and we have to see whether there is some material,” the bench had said.

The bench said if there were some grave lapses, then it may consider the prayers like investigation by a special investigation team in the case.

The Maharashtra police had arrested the rights activists on August 28 in connection with an FIR lodged following a conclave — 'Elgaar Parishad' — held on December 31 last year that had later triggered violence at Koregaon-Bhima village.

Prominent Telugu poet Rao was arrested on August 28 from Hyderabad, while activists Gonsalves and Ferreira were nabbed from Mumbai, trade union activist Sudha Bharadwaj from Faridabad in Haryana and civil liberties activist Navlakha from Delhi.