The Bombay High Court yesterday dismissed a writ petition which was filed by Gautam Navlakha seeking the FIR registered against him by Pune police, in which he is alleged to be involved in inciting violence at Bhima-Koregaon, be quashed.

The division bench of Bombay High Court comprising Justices Ranjit More and Bharati Dangre observed that there was prima facie additional material against Gautam Navlakha which was submitted in a sealed envelope by the Additional Public Prosecutor, Aruna Pai.

The judgment was reserved by the Bombay High Court on 26th July 2019 and extended the protection to Gautam Navlakha for three weeks after the counsel for Gautam Navlakha, Dr. Yug Choudhary sought a stay on the judgment in order to file an appeal in the Supreme Court.

The bench in its judgment had stated that “Having considered the documents referred to above and submitted for our perusal by the learned APP in a sealed envelope, we are satisfied that the investigating agency has material to connect the Petitioner in the subject crime. The investigation is still in progress. Considering the nature and magnitude of the conspiracy, in our opinion, the investigating agency is required to be given sufficient time to unearth the evidence against the Petitioner especially when the scope of the investigation is not restricted to Bhima-Koregaon incident but activities leading to the incident and subsequent activities as well are the subject matter of investigation.”

–India Legal Bureau