Prima Facie It Appears NIA Acted In Haste To Move Gautam Navlakha To Mumbai: Delhi HC [Read Order]
Live LawIn the matter pertaining to the bail plea of Gautam Navlakha, the Delhi High Court has directed National Investigation Agency to furnish the complete copy of the proceedings in the application for issuance of production warrants moved before the Special Judge, for its consideration. The Single Bench of Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani has also asked for the complete records of the application moved before the Delhi Bench of NIA Court for seeking an extension of Navlakha's judicial remand. Ms Ramakrishnan informed the court that while the present proceedings are pending, a hearing for extension of the applicant's judicial remand was conducted on 23.05.2020 before the Special Judge, Delhi, and at the NIA's request, the applicant's judicial remand was extended upto 22.06.2020. When SG resisted to this demand, the court rejected it and went ahead in directing for the appearance of the IO within an hour by noting that: 'While ordinarily this court would not see too much cause for hurry in this case, in view of the inexplicable, frantic hurry shown by the NIA in moving the applicant from Delhi to Mumbai while this matter was pending and the NIA had itself sought time to file status report, this court does get a sense that all proceedings in this jurisdiction would be rendered utterly infructuous if an element of urgency is not brought to bear on the present proceedings. Prima-facie it appears that while on the last date, this court had granted adequate time to the NIA to file its status report in response to the interim bail plea ; and while the NIA has filed an affidavit opposing that plea, the NIA has acted in unseemly haste to instead remove the applicant out of the very jurisdiction of this court ; and, if the applicant is right, without even informing the Special Judge, Mumbai or the Special Judge, Delhi of the pendency of the present proceedings.'