Bhima-Koregaon accused urges HC to quash FIR

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Monday reserved its order on the petition filed by Professor Anand Teltumbde seeking quashing of the FIR against him and 21 others in Bhima-Koregaon violence, which took place last year.

Advocate Mihir Desai representing Teltumbde informed before the court that since registration of FIR the police have not conducted any search in his house.

Moreover, until he approached the Bombay high court seeking relief, Pune police did not even make any effort to arrest him.

So given the circumstances, the case against him should be quashed.

However public prosecutor Aruna Pai objecting the move said that Mr Teltumbde’s case cannot be separated and investigation in the case is still going on because of which Pune police cannot assure that they will not arrest him.

Mr Pai argued before the court that Mr Teltumbde’s name has appeared in letters that had been seized from the laptop of accused Rona Wilson in the year 2017.   

She further argued that one Milind Teltumbde who is the brother of Mr Anand was also involved in this case is still absconding.

On this advocate Mr Desai argued that Mr Anand had not met his brother for the last 26 years.

According to Mr Pai one of the letters recovered from the same laptop was written to Comrade Anand about giving footing to domestic chaos in the international arena. Mr Pai said that Mr Teltumbde had travelled to Paris for an international conference as directed in the letter. Mr Desai did not refute the claim and said that Mr Teltumbde as part of his work travels quite often. He added that the professor had the chance to run away but he did not do so.

Division bench of Justice B.P. Dharma-dhikari and Justice S.V. Kotwal said that they needed time to discuss before giving an order in the case.