NIA Sends Gautam Navlakha 1.6 Crore Bill for House Arrest, SC Says 'You Asked For It, Now Pay'

New Delhi: Gautam Navlakha will have to pay Rs 1.64 crore bill towards expenses raised by the National Investigation Agency in keeping him under the house arrest in connection with the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case. 

The mentioned amount was spent to make available police personnel for his security during his house arrest which he himself had requested, the anti-terror agency said. 

The NIA told a bench of justices M M Sundresh and S V N Bhatti that Navlakha is required to make a payment of Rs 1.64 crore towards expenses for security.

“If you have sought for it, you have to pay,” the bench told the counsel representing Navlakha granting him one week's time to decide on how he would reimburse agency.  

“The liability, you know, you can’t escape because you asked for it (house arrest),” the apex court observed.

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) S V Raju, representing the NIA, mentioned that Rs 1.64 crore is due and the 70-year-old man must pay for the security provided during his house arrest.

Terming the order of house arrest as “unusual”, the ASG said a large number of security forces were deployed round-the-clock for security during his house arrest.

The counsel representing Navlakha said there is no difficulty in paying per se but the issue was with respect to calculation.

The legal counsel appearing for Gautam Navlakha, said there’s no question of avoiding the payment, but the agency should provide details of the Rs 1.6 crore expenditure it has claimed to have incurred.

The social activist has been under house arrest from Nov 2022.