The Bombay High Court on Tuesday reserved its order on a transit anticipatory bail plea filed by Mumbai lawyer Nikita Jacob, a suspect in a case registered by Delhi Police in connection with spread of an online ‘toolkit’ over the ongoing farmers protest. However, the Aurangabad bench of the high court granted anticipatory bail to Shantanu Mukul, a Pune-based engineer in the same case.
Both Nikita and Shantanu had on Monday approached the high court separately seeking transit anticipatory bail, after a Delhi court issued non-bailable warrants against them.
Justice Vibha Kankanwadi granted Shantanu, resident of Beed in central Maharashtra, ten days' transit anticipatory bail to enable him to apply for protection before the appropriate court in Delhi.
Nikita's plea for pre-arrest bail was heard by Justice P.D. Naik at the high court's principal bench in Mumbai which said it would pass the order on Wednesday.
The Delhi Police had claimed that Shantanu and Nikita, along with arrested activist Disha Ravi, were the creators of the Google document shared by Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg on Twitter.
Disha, a Bengaluru-based climate activist, was arrested on Saturday and sent to five-day police custody in connection with the case. According to police, it was Disha who shared the 'toolkit' with Thunberg.
The police had on Monday claimed that both Nikita and Shantanu had attended a Zoom meeting organised by Poetic Justice Foundation, a pro-Khalistani group, to prepare the modalities of the ‘Global Day of Action’. The police have written to Zoom to find out who all were the other participants of the virtual meet and whether Thunberg had attended it.
"Disha, Shantanu and Nikita created and edited the toolkit. Disha sent the toolkit to Greta Thunberg through the Telegram app. Disha deleted a Whatsapp group which she had created to spread the toolkit. Due procedure was followed during Disha's arrest," Joint Commissioner of Police (Cyber) Prem Nath had said.
He had also said Puneet, a Canada-based woman, had put Nikita, Disha and Shantanu in touch with the PJF.
The ‘toolkit’ had triggered a storm after Thunberg shared it on Twitter and deleted hours later, prompting the Delhi Police to launch an investigation into alleged international conspiracy to defame the Indian government.
The police had claimed that the 'toolkit' predated and indicated a copycat execution of a conspiracy behind the January 26 violence in Delhi.
Thousands of farmers, protesting against the new farm laws passed by the Centre, clashed with police and stormed the Red Fort, where a religious flag was hoisted on the Republic Day. Over 500 police personnel were injured and one protester died.
