Koregaon-Bhima violence: Rights activists to remain under house arrest till Sep 12, says SC

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday restrained Pune police from parading evidence before the media, rapped them for destroying reputations by conducting a media trial, wondered how far can they go in a criminal case, and extended the house arrest of the five activists arrested recently while it debated the way ahead.

“How far can we go?” a three-judge bench led by CJI Dipak Misra asked ASG Tushar Mehta and the lead lawyer for the activists Abhishek Manu Singhvi. “Can third parties be allowed to intervene in a criminal case?”

The bench is hearing a plea by intellectuals, including Romila Thapar and Prabhat Patnaik, against the “random arrests” that they argued were designed to “quell dissent”. Those arrested are lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj, journalist Gautam Naulakha, poet Varavara Rao, lecturer Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferriera.


At the last hearing, the top court had ordered that the arrested activists not be kept in police custody or have to face the criminal law process which has been set in motion, and instead be kept under house arrest.

Maharashtra police had invoked the dreaded Unlawful Activities Prevention Act with little possibility of getting bail for supporting and actively taking part in planning violent activities as per the agenda of the now banned CPI (Maoist).