 Hello and welcome to this very, very important and crucial conversation with the former Supreme Court Judge, Justice P. B. Savant, renowned for his many, many pronouncements, former Press Council chairperson, and we are going to speak with him today on the Elgar Parishad, much known, much in the news these days, the Elgar Parishad that was held in Pune on December 31, 2017. Hello Justice Savant, thank you so much for agreeing to talk to us, CJP and NewsClick together. We want to first ask you about what was the idea behind the Elgar Parishad that was held in Pune on December 31, 2017. The object of the conference was to protest against the unconstitutional governance of the central as well as the state government and also to demand that the governments abide by the constitution and also implement it faithfully, since it was observed that they were disregarding the provisions of the constitution and that was the item in their manifesto, election manifesto that they have, they do not accept the constitution and they want to change the constitution. Sir, the Pune police is making allegations about money links, Maoist links and Naxal links with this Elgar Parishad that was held in Pune on December 31, 2017 of which you are the convener, a former Supreme Court judge. What would you have to say about these allegations and has the Pune police even spoken to you about these allegations? As far as we know, there was no Maoist or Naxalist who was concerned with the Elgar Parishad or was present in the conference except one man, Mr. Sudhir Dhawle, who is an office bearer of Kabir Kala Manch and whom the police have always been calling an exalite. We do not call him an exalite and we have no connection whatsoever with any Naxalite or Maoist because this is not the first time that we had such a conference. We had held a conference on similar lines three years earlier on 4th October, 2015 and there was no such allegation made at that time and the same team except for the fact that additional assistance was of the Kabir Kala Manch and their activists. And as far as Kabir Kala Manch and their activists are concerned, they have no connection with the Naxalites or Maoists. The police themselves have by holding a press conference about two or three weeks ago given a clean cheat to the activists of the Kabir Kala Manch and they said that we did not find any connection between the Kabir Kala Manch activists and the Maoist or Naxalites. So the charge made is ridiculous to say the least. No finance was required for holding the conference. There is already a permanent stage built at the venue namely Shani Marwada. We had held conference, earlier conference also at the same place and this conference also was held in the same place. We had only to spend on the loudspeaker and the microphone which was not a even recognizable expenditure. And we had financed it from our own pocket. Sir, country-wide arrests have been made or attempted to be made rather, they were made and then reversed by the Supreme Court directive. Country-wide arrests were attempted to be made and made by the Pune Police on August 28th and earlier on June 2018 following allegations and following post-facto investigations around the Elgar Parishat. Many persons or all the persons who were against whom raids have taken place and whose arrests have been made and attempted to be made were not even present in Pune on that day. Your comments, sir? You are right in saying that those persons who were arrested either on 28th August or on 6th June 2018 had no links with this particular conference. But an exception is that we had the assistance of Kabir Kalamansh activists and their other organizations and they are not involved in any exalite or Maoist activities. Justice Savant, over the past two or three months, the Maharashtra ATS has unearthed plots, we are reading media reports of this day in and day out, about the involvement of Sanatan Sanstha and other extremist organizations and allegedly even other unearthing, you know, gelatin sticks, bombs, detonators and other such materials which were aimed according to the reports we are seeing in the media with the killing of rationalist Narendra Dhabalkar in the past and also connected according to media reports with possibilities of Ganpati Pandals and religious processions being disrupted and bombed in the future. Do you feel in any way that the hysteria, mass hysteria that is being attempted to be created by sections of the Pune police around the Elgaparisha is any attempt or an attempt to kind of divert national attention and public attention from these other investigations by the Maharashtra ATS? There is no doubt that this is a political move and the police have acted at the instance of the government having found that the Hindu Tua organizations or the activists of Sanatan Sanstha and other Hindu outfits have indulged in manufacturing bombs and they have given a confession that they were going to throw these bombs at various places not only in Pune but also in Bombay, Thana, Kalyan and so other and also wherever some events were organized by people like us, the activists like us who are the critics of the present governments and since the police themselves have found out the activities of the Hindu Tua organizations they wanted the government wanted to divert the attention of the people from the Hindu activists to whatever we had done in the conference some six months ago and they have come out with for the first time with this allegation after they found that the police have also honored the plot of the Hindu Tua activists. Thank you very, very much Justice Savant for talking to us. Thank you very, very much.