Mumbai: Dalit rights activist Dr Anand Teltumbde, one of the accused in the 2018 Elgar Parishad case, has approached the Bombay High Court seeking permission to travel to Europe in April and May for academic purposes.
The bench of Justices Ajay Gadkari and Kamal Khata has directed the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to file its reply to Teltumbde’s plea within two weeks.
Seeking permission to travel to Amsterdam and the UK, Teltumbde’s plea states that he is a leading authority on Dr Ambedkar, the Dalit movement, caste, public policy and democratic rights in India.
“Faculty of Humanities, University of Amsterdam has selected the applicant as a visiting scholar based on his ‘internationally renowned scholarship and expertise in the area of social justice’,” his plea states.
It adds that it is a four-week programme involving giving seminars, delivering a lecture on Ambedkar on 14th April, 2025 conducting master classes with Ph.D. candidates, post-graduate teachings and meetings with individual scholars and faculty.
He has claimed that he has been invited by Leiden Institute for Asia Studies, Leiden University in the Netherlands to deliver a lecture on April 16. Further, Nottingham Trent University in United Kingdom has also invited him also Scholar-in-Residence for the first two weeks in May.
“The Applicant states that he intends to travel to Amsterdam on 1s April, 2025 for the assignments in the Netherlands and thereafter, on 1s May, 2025 to Nottingham, UK to take up two assignments there,” his plea read.
“Providing six days for the invitations from Universities of Oxford, Edinburgh and University College London, he will return to Mumbai by 21 May 2025.”
The application also makes mention of invitations by three more universities in the UK, including the University of Oxford. He has filed plea seeking travel permission as one of his bail conditions imposes travel restrictions. He has also sought release of his passport to facilitate his visa applications.
The central agency has accused Teltumbde of being one of the conveyors of the Elgar Parishad event which triggered the violence. The activist has denied the allegations.
His bail was rejected by the special court in July 2021. He was later released on bail by the HC in November 2022, which was upheld by the Supreme Court.
