A Special NIA Court in Mumbai has turned down activist Gautam Navlakha’s plea seeking a 45-day visit to Delhi, calling it a repeated effort to sidestep previous court orders.
The court remarked that the application appeared to be an indirect way of securing a long-term stay in the capital, which had already been denied.
Personal Reasons Cited For Travel Request
Navlakha, currently on bail in the Elgar Parishad case, requested permission to travel to Delhi between July 15 and August 30. In his application, he cited several personal reasons, including his sister’s declining health, a long-awaited reunion with his partner’s family, domestic responsibilities, and medical appointments.
His lawyer, Advocate Wahab Khan, argued that Navlakha had fully complied with all earlier court conditions when granted travel permission, and that this request was neither excessive nor indefinite.
Prosecution Raises Concern Over Serious Charges
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), however, opposed the request. Special Public Prosecutor Prakash Shetty maintained that given the seriousness of the charges against Navlakha, any relaxation of restrictions should be viewed with caution. He argued that repeated travel applications undermined the integrity of the judicial process.
Special Judge Chakor S Baviskar, while rejecting the plea, pointed out that a similar request had already been approved in November 2024 on humanitarian grounds. However, when Navlakha later applied for permanent relocation to Delhi, the court had explicitly denied it in June 2025.
The judge noted that repeating the same grounds to seek fresh permissions amounted to an attempt to bypass the court’s earlier ruling. “Just because permission was granted once, it does not entitle the applicant to expect it every time,” the court observed.
Court Questions Intent Behind Application
The court went a step further, suggesting that Navlakha’s latest plea could be seen as a strategy to indirectly obtain what was denied directly.
“This appears to be a calculated move to achieve through repetition what the High Court and this court have already refused,” the judge said. “One cannot do indirectly what is not permitted directly.”
Although the court refrained from imposing a penalty or costs, it firmly warned that such repeated applications would not be encouraged.
Case Background
Navlakha is one of the accused in the 2017 Elgar Parishad case, where speeches made at a Pune event are alleged to have incited violence the next day at the Bhima Koregaon memorial. The case is being investigated under charges of conspiracy and links to banned organisations.
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