Mumbai: A public interest litigation (PIL) was filed in the Bombay high court on Tuesday, seeking action against senior IPS officer Parambir Singh and other police officials who briefed the media on their case against some Left-wing activists arrested over their alleged Maoist links.
Singh had addressed Press conference on August 31.
During the press conference, Mr Singh had read out letters purportedly exchanged between the activists.
He claimed that the police had concreted evidence to link the Left-wing activists arrested in June as well as last week to Maoists.
The activist Sanjay Bhalerao through his lawyer Nitin Satpute filed a PIL.
Petition stated that police could have used this information as evidence but they disclosed it for publicity.
According to the petition, on March 19 this year, the Pune police had filed an application before the magistrate, seeking permission to carry out searches at the residences of some activists.
Police had sought for the application to be heard on camera on the ground that the accused would destroy evidence.
The magistrate on March 19 allowed police's request for in-camera proceedings. According to PIL police have violated the magistrate court's order.
The petitioner also alleged that the probe carried out by the Pune police was politically motivated and with malafide intentions.
Pune Police had arrested activists Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson, Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen and Mahesh Raut in June while probing the alleged Maoist connection with the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31 last year. Last week,police had arrested five more Left-wing activists Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj and Gautam Navalakha from different places in the country.
On Monday, the high court, while hearing another petition seeking an NIA probe into the case, raised questions that How can an investigation officer reveal investigation details when matter the is sub judice in the Supreme Court? And revealing information pertaining to the case is wrong". The court also said how the police could read out such documents, which may be used as evidence in the case. Police also claimed that arrested accused have links with Maoist and Naxalist.
