New Delhi: Activist Gautam Navlakha was once again denied bail by a special NIA court on Thursday, April, in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.The Bombay high court had previously quashed the special judge’s order denying bail to the activist and instructed him to rehear Navlakha’s bail plea, citing the special court’s lack of analysis of the evidence presented by the prosecution.On Thursday, special judge Rajesh Katariya rejected Navlakha’s bail plea after reconsidering the submissions, according to the news agency PTI. A detailed order is yet unavailable.Navlakha was arrested in August 2018 and transferred to the Taloja Jail near Mumbai in April 2020, following a period of house arrest. The Supreme Court allowed his return to house arrest for a month on November 10, 2022. Navlakha presently resides in Navi Mumbai, Thane district, Maharashtra.The Elgar Parishad case pertains to alleged inflammatory speeches made at the eponymous conference held in Pune on December 31, 2017. The Pune police, which was investigating the case until the NIA took it over, claim the conference incited caste riots in the Koregaon Bhima War Memorial vicinity the next day. So far, 16 people – activists, lawyers and artists – have been arrested in connection with the case. Critics of the Narendra Modi government have described the investigation into the case as a witch hunt against dissenters.
