New Delhi: A Delhi court on Monday disposed of the anticipatory bail pleas of Nikita Jacob, Shantanu Muluk and Shubham Kar Chaudhari in connection with the toolkit case, while directing the Delhi Police to serve them a 7-day advance notice when their arrest and custodial interrogation becomes imminent.
Additional Sessions Judge in his order noted: "...at this juncture it is proposed by the learned defence counsels and argued by the learned APP that the investigation is at an initial stage and requires technical investigation and then submitted by the defence counsels that to be fair to the investigating agency, they are inclined to withdraw the bail applications subject to conditions that during the investigation, the investigating agency finds the arrest of accused persons imminent an unavoidable, then 7 days' advance notice shall be served upon the accused persons when they can exercise their judicial duties".
Counsels for Jacob and Muluk, Senior advocates Rebecca John and Vrinda Grover respectively, argued that their clients were merely members of the environmental campaign group called "Extinction Rebellion" and had no affiliation with a Mo Dhaliwal or the Khalistani movement.
Meanwhile, advocate Soutik Banerjee, on behalf of Chaudhuri, argued that his client had never edited the toolkit and was merely a liaison officer for the campaign's South Asia chapter and hence was not responsible for what other members did with the toolkit.
During the hearing, DCP Cyber Cell, Anyesh Roy, told the court that based on the conduct of the accused persons, custodial interrogation would be needed. "We are dependent on foreign-based service providers... we don't want to have a situation where we are denied custodial interrogation," he told ASJ Rana.
The Bombay High court last month had granted transit anticipatory bail to Jacob for three weeks while Muluk and Chaudhuri too were granted interim protection by the court last month following which all three had moved court seeking anticipatory bail.