New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the plea for SIT probe in Bhima Koregaon case.
The apex court further extended the house arrest order of five activists, who were arrested from several cities in connection with the case, by four weeks to to enable the accused to seek legal remedy at appropriate legal forum.
The majority verdict disagreed with the PIL by historian Romila Thapar and others seeking the immediate release of the rights activist, with liberty to the accused to seek remedy in appropriate court.
The Pune Police had arrested the activists — Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves, Sudha Bharadwaj and Gautam Navlakha — on August 28 on the basis of an FIR lodged after the ‘Elgar Parishad’ conclave held in Pune on December 31 last year that had triggered violence at Bhima-Koregaon village.
Prominent Telugu poet Rao was arrested from Hyderabad, while activists Gonsalves and Ferreira were nabbed from Mumbai, trade union activist Bharadwaj from Faridabad in Haryana and civil liberties activist Navlakha from Delhi.
Later, the apex court had directed the police to keep them under house arrest.
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With PTI inputs