SC stays Delhi High Court proceedings in Gauta Navlakha case, issues notice

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court stayed the Delhi High Court proceedings in the civil rights activist Gautam Navlakha’s case and issued a notice to him on a plea by the National Investigative Agency (NIA), which objected to the high court passing any interim order on his bail plea on the grounds that he was now outside the court’s territorial jurisdiction.

The Delhi HC had on May 27, while seeking the trial court records in the case, slammed the NIA for hurriedly shifting Navlakha from Delhi to Mumbai when his plea for interim bail was pending before the court.


The NIA moved the top court against this order. On Tuesday, a bench led by Justice Arun Mishra stayed the proceedings. “Issue notice. Until further orders, the proceedings before the (Delhi) High Court shall remain stayed,” said a short order issued by the bench, which also comprised justices S Abdul Nazeer and Indira Banerjee. The case will come up for hearing again after 15 days.

Navlakha, 67, was arrested by the Pune Police from his Delhi residence in August 2018 following the violence at Koregaon Bhima village. The NIA claimed that the “issue of notice in the present matter… was wholly without territorial jurisdiction”.