The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Maharashtra government to produce the best document to justify the arrest of the activists.
A Bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice AM Kanwilkar and DY Chandrachud examined the documents and case diary submitted by the State government and asked the Additional Solicitor General(ASG) Tushar Mehta to produce the best document available showing the involvement of the activists. When the ASG told the court that the ‘case diary’ is self explanatory, the CJI asked the ASG “show us your one best document first.”
The five activists Varavara Rao, lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Gautam Navlakha were taken into custody from different parts of the country on August 28. The very next day the Supreme Court had directed that they be kept under `house arrest’ and this has been extended till tomorrow.
The ASG submitted the recorded evidence by the police which consists of electronic evidence such as phones, laptops and they were given for Forensic examination. The ASG said, “How can we say we are framing someone? We found concrete materials required to justify the arrest,” as quoted by Deccan chronicle.
He furthur said that the arrests had nothing to do with dissent or writings by the activits. “This concerns serious offences. There is material recovered from their laptops, computers, hard disks, etc. We want your Lordships to go through the materials, which will shock the court’s conscience. Don’t make up your mind without going through the materials in full.”
Justice Chandrachud then told the ASG, “the court has to look with a hawk’s eye at the case of activists’ arrest in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence. Our institutions should be robust enough to accommodate dissent. We want to have a holistic view. We won’t go by one or two documents. Don’t raise your opposition about this court entertaining the petition. We want our shoulders to be robust and not restricted. We feel liberty can’t be sacrificed in the alter of conjecture. We will look at all these attempts with the hawk’s eyes,” as quoted by the daily. He furthur added, “those at the helm of institutions may not like everything that is said about them but this cannot be grounds to stop them. Our institutions should be robust enough when there is an opposition to the system or even to this court. Then there has to be something different to constitute subversion of law and order as far as elected government is concerned. We may not like it but we must also accept there could be dissent… Let us make a clear-cut distinction between an opposition and attempts to create disturbance, overthrow government etc.”
Senior advocate Harish Salve represents the information in this case and said, “There must be a distinction between a dissenting view and a criminal act. One may say out of anger that I will burn the Constitution because it has proved to be unfair to a certain class.”
The ASG said, “We don’t doubt the powers of this court. Your Lordships will have to see whether the materials we have produced shocks your judicial conscience and whether the investigation is being carried in accordance with the provisions of CrPC.”
Also read: Elgaar Parishad probe: Arundhati Roy compares activists’ arrests with Emergency