The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the human rights activists arrested by the Maharashtra police on August 28, will remain under house arrest till September 12.
The apex court had earlier asked the police to submit evidence against the activists on September 6 and ordered that the five activists be kept under house arrest till then.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra took umbrage over the statements given by the Assistant Commissioner of Police of Pune on the matter, saying he was casting aspersions on the court.
The bench, which also comprised Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, told the Maharashtra government to make its police officials “more responsible” on matters pending before the court.
“You must ask your police officials to be more responsible. The matter is before us and we don’t want to hear from police officials that the Supreme Court is wrong,” the bench told ASG Tushar Mehta, who was appearing for Maharashtra government.
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The bench also asked petitioner Romila Thapar and others to satisfy it on whether a third party could intervene in a criminal case.
Meanwhile, Mehta told the bench that keeping the activists under house arrest would hamper the ongoing investigation.
The bench posted the matter for further hearing on September 12.
The Maharashtra government had yesterday told the apex court that the five rights activists were arrested due to the cogent evidence linking them with the banned CPI(Maoist) and not because of their dissenting views.
Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Vernon Gonsalves, Varavara Rao and Arun Ferreira were arrested by police officials in connection to the Bhima Koregaon violence.
The Maharashtra Police raids were carried out as part of a probe into the Elgaar Parishad’, an event organised in Pune on December 31, 2017, which allegedly triggered violence at Koregaon-Bhima village in the district the next day.
(With inputs from PTI)