February 04, 2019:

In the wake of Dalit scholar Anand Teltumbde’s illegal arrest by Pune police and his subsequent release, the 5 petitioners who had approached the Supreme Court against the arrest of the Civil Rights Activists, have called the development a “mockery of constitutional guarantees, of due process and of democracy”.

Teltumbde, who was granted relief from arrest until Feb 11 by the Apex Court was regardless arrested on Sat after a Pune Court refused to grant him anticipatory bail in a case related to the Bhima Koregaon violence.

The Court, however, called this arrest “illegal” and “in contempt of the apex court’s order” later on Sat, and clarified that the civil rights activist still had the option of obtaining an anticipatory bail from Bombay High Court or the Supreme Court.

In a press note released by activists Romila Thapar, Devaki Jain, Maja Daruwala, Prabhat Patnaik and Satish Deshpande, an appeal has been made to the judiciary to act on the “regressive trend that threatens to destroy India's hard-won democratic traditions”.

"While the illegal arrest of Professor Anand Teltumbde by Maharashtra Police in defiance of the Supreme Court has been set aside for the time being, the fact that it occurred at all points to the break-down of rule of law within a government agency whose duty it is to uphold the law,” it read.

The activists have accused the government of ignoring the serious doubts raised over the motivation behind these arrests and overlooking even the “reservations of the higher judiciary”.

“Those who have been arrested will be incarcerated for years to come, judging by the fact that even the five "activists” arrested last year, spend month after month in jail without a proper judicial hearing. This is a well-known way of silencing citizens who express dissent or work towards establishing basic human rights, and suggests that the state is willing to subvert the Constitution,” read the press note.

“It is time, therefore, for concerned citizens to build a broad-based, peaceful and constitutional resistance to such subversion of due process and abuse of authority,” it concluded.

Many political leaders and human rights activists had stepped forward on Saturday to condemn Teltumbde’s abrupt arrest, terming it a blatant violation of the apex court’s order.

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