The Supreme Court on Friday adjourned the hearing of an appeal filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) challenging a Delhi High Court order questioning the “frantic hurry” with which civil rights campaigner Gautam Navlakha was shifted out of the National Capital to Mumbai in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case.
The adjournment by a Bench led by Justice Arun Mishra was after Mr. Navlakha’s lawyer, advocate Shadan Farasat, submitted that he had still not got a copy of the agency’s appeal. The court asked the NIA to provide him with a copy to prepare a response and listed the case after the court reopens post vacations on July 6.
The NIA, represented by Additional Solicitor General Aman Lekhi, maintained that it had acted quickly in the background of the uncertainty surrounding the lockdown and availability of inter-State flights.
The Supreme Court had in the previous hearing stayed the proceedings for Mr. Navlakha’s bail filed in the Delhi High Court.
The stay order had come merely a week after a Single Judge Bench of Justice Anup Bhambhani of the Delhi High Court questioned the “inexplicable, frantic hurry” with which the National Investigation Agency (NIA) shifted Mr. Navlakha out of Delhi to Mumbai.
Justice Bhambhani had observed that the NIA showed unseemly haste to move Mr. Navlakha to Mumbai, outside the jurisdiction of the Delhi High Court. All the more puzzling was the fact that he was bundled out of the National Capital a day before his bail hearing was scheduled on May 27.
