Activist Nikita Jacob's transit bail plea: Bombay HC reserves order for tomorrow

Bombay High Court on Tuesday reserved its order on the plea of activist Nikita Jacob, one of the editors of the Toolkit doc.

The Court reserves order for tomorrow. Delhi Police said there would be no coercive action till then. Another accused Shantanu Muluk on Tuesday was given transit bail for 10 days by Aurangabad bench of Bombay HC.

Delhi police advocate Hiten Venegavkar told the Bombay HC that since the case is lodged in Delhi, this court (state HC) does not have the powers to grant any relief or protection.

Lawyer of activist Nikita Jacob told the court Police have raided her place and seized laptops and mobile phones, and the next day police again wanted to come and now she feared that she will be arrested and her career will spoil as she is the lawyer and do practice in this court too she knows her duty too.

After the Delhi Police issued a non-bailable warrant against lawyer Nikita Jacob, in connection with alleged spreading a 'toolkit' related to the farmers' protest, she had moved to the Bombay High Court for interim protection against the police action on Monday.

Jacob has filed a transit bail plea against the non-bailable warrant with Delhi Police in the 'toolkit' matter.

The case was mentioned before Justice PD Naik's bench and was heard on Tuesday.

In the transit bail petition, she has claimed that the Delhi Police's Cyber Cell has recorded her statement.

As per the petition, a team of Delhi Police on February 11 went to Jacob's residence in Mumbai with a search warrant and seized some of her personal documents and her electronic gadgets.

"The Delhi Police team also took the passwords of her social media accounts from her. A 'panchnama' regarding all this was also made by the police," the petition read.

It further reads, "There is an apprehension that despite cooperating with the investigation, the applicant can be arrested due to a political vendetta and media trial."

This comes a day after Disha Ravi, "a climate activist", was arrested and sent to five days of police custody.

Disha Ravi, a 21-year-old climate activist was arrested from Bengaluru in connection with the formulation and dissemination of the 'Toolkit' document, in the ongoing farmers' protest. She was one of the editors of the 'Toolkit' document.

Earlier, the Delhi Police sent a communication to Google seeking registration details and activity log of the account through which a "toolkit" related to the farmers' protest was created and uploaded on the social media platform.

Two e-mail IDs, one Instagram account, and one Uniform Resource Locator (URL) were mentioned in the toolkit and police have asked for details from the respective platforms.

The police had registered an FIR against unidentified persons in connection with the creators of the 'toolkit'.

( With inputs from ANI )