The Pune Police have taken activist Sudha Bharadwaj into custody in Faridabad, Bar and Bench reported, after the Punjab and Haryana High Court ordered on Tuesday evening that her transit remand only be passed if it satisfies certain conditions.
Bharadwaj was to be taken to Pune hours after her arrest, but the High Court said she would remain under house arrest for three days unless the local court takes a considered view of the police’s transit remand request.
However, her lawyer said the police had taken her into custody because the chief judicial magistrate in Faridabad, who ordered the transit remand, has not received the High Court’s order.
Pune Police Joint Commissioner Shivaji Bodakhe said: “We have to see the High Court order. Unless the police receives it [routed through the chief judicial magistrate of Faridabad] and reads it thoroughly, she will be in police custody.”
The Punjab & Haryana High Court has ordered House arrest of Sudha Bharadwaj. However, the CJM Faridabad has not recieved a copy of the order of the High Court. Therefore the Pune Police has taken Sudha Bharadwaj into custody. @Sudhabharadwaj #BhimaKoregaonRaids #Bhimakoregaon pic.twitter.com/b3fXrgVxER
— Bar & Bench (@barandbench) August 28, 2018
Lawyer Vrinda Grover has messaged the police, asking them to follow the High Court’s order and take her to her home near Badarpur border.
Vrinda Grover has written a Whatsapp message to the Police enquiring about Sudha Bharadwaj – "You are, as a police officer, required to follow the HC order."
@Sudhabharadwaj @vrindagrover #BhimaKoregaon pic.twitter.com/FxXZUeSeiT
— Bar & Bench (@barandbench) August 28, 2018
Bharadwaj is a human rights lawyer who has worked for several decades in Chhattisgarh. She was arrested in connection with an investigation into a public meeting that was organised before caste-related violence erupted at Bhima Koregaon near Pune on January 1. A habeas corpus petition filed by her lawyers in the Punjab and Haryana High Court described the arrest as a “witch-hunt for unsympathetic political views”.
Earlier in the day, the Delhi High Court had stayed the order of a local court granting Maharashtra Police transit remand to take fellow activist Gautam Navlakha, who was also arrested in connection with the same case, to Pune. He will remain under house arrest until the court hears his case on Wednesday.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court, noting this order, concluded that Bharadwaj shall be kept at her home, unless a local court finds that the full conditions for transit remand are met and recorded.
“It is directed that in case the detenue is produced before the concerned Ilaqa Magistrate/Duty Magistrate/Chief Judicial Magistrate, Faridabad, the order granting transit remand will be passed after going through the contents of the FIR and recording a finding that the provisions of Section 41 and 50 of the Criminal Procedure Code have been complied with.
Till then, the detenue – Sudha Bharadwaj shall be kept at the same place i.e. her home at Badarpur border in the State of Haryana, from where she was arrested under the supervision of Police Station Surajkund.”
Bhardawaj’s plea claimed that she was given arrest documents in Marathi, which she does not understand, and the First Information Report based on which she was arrested did not name her, both of which would mean the conditions for transit remand had been unsatisfied.
Bharadwaj is among several activists whose homes were raided by teams of the Pune Police across the country on Tuesday morning. The homes of Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Gautam Navlakha, Stan Swamy, Varavara Rao, Kranti Tekula and Naseem and Anand Teltumbde were raided. By the evening, at least five of them were arrested.
