New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday granted interim protection from arrest for four weeks to Prof Anand Teltumbde of Goa’s Institute of Management arraigned in the Bhima-Koregaon violence on January 1 2018. The Bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Ashok Bhushan and Sanjay Kishan Kaul asked Dr Teltumbde “to seek regular/pre-arrest bail from the competent authority, if so advised.” It passed the order on being told by the professor’s senior counsel Kapil Sibbal the interim protection against arrest granted to him on October 15 was valid until this Friday (January 18).
Anand Teltumbde had come in appeal against the Bombay High Court dismissing his writ petition on December 21, dismissing his petition on the ground it won’t interfere when the investigation is still in progress to allow the investigating agency have sufficient opportunity to collect evidence.
The HC had turned down his pleas he had nothing to do with Elgar Parishad nor with the banned CPI (Maoist) group that incited the violence and he was in Goa at the time in the last week of December 2017 and first week of January 2018. It relied on police claim the prof was same person known in CPI(M) as Anand, Comrade Anand and AnantT who had allegedly received “90T” from Surendra through one Milind for the violence.
The HC had also rejected his plea he had stressed in an article on 02.01.2018, submitted on 31.12.2017, whose tenor runs contrary to views expressed in Elgar Parishad. He had written the soldiers fought for employers in the battle between Peshwas and British and the caste of soldiers was never an issue, in contrast to the Elgar Parishad celebrating it as a win of Dalits in the battle.
His lawyer had stressed in the HC his locked house in Goa was raided in August 2018 but nothing was seized nor has he been called since he got the interim bail or seized anything from him as the case is falsely built against him on the basis of recoveries from others.
