CJI Urged to Change SC Orders on Teltumbde, Navlakha Amid COVID-19
The QuintOver 5,000 public intellectuals, civil rights activists and organisations, including Noam Chomsky, Prakash Ambedkar, Gayatri Spivak, Ramchandra Guha, and Arundhati Roy, as well as retired judges Kolse Patil and PB Sawant, have signed a petition to Chief Justice of India SA Bobde and the Supreme Court, asking them to reconsider the order for Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha to surrender to the police by 6 April. Teltumbde and Navlakha are among those academics, activists, and lawyers who have been accused of involvement in the Bhima Koregaon violence, and being Maoists. Others who have been accused and arrested for this under the draconian Unlawful Activities Act include Sudha Bhardwaj, Vernon Gonsalves, Sudhir Dhawale, Barbara Rao and Surendra Gadling. The petition argues that both Teltumbde and Navlakha, "two of India’s foremost civil rights activists and public intellectuals today", are senior citizens with pre-existing health conditions, making them highly vulnerable to the coronavirus if lodged in jail.