Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) leaders Bimal Gurung and Roshan Giri on Tuesday told the Calcutta High Court that they are residing in another state and not in Nepal, a claim challenged by the West Bengal government which said they have fled to the neighbouring country.
Gurung and Giri have moved the high court seeking anticipatory bail in connection with over 150 criminal cases filed against them by the West Bengal police since mid-2017, when a violent agitation erupted over statehood demand in Darjeeling Hills.
Lawyers for the two leaders admitted that they may have gone to the Himalayan nation occasionally, while asserting that the citizens of Nepal and India can enter each other's countries freely as per the Indo-Nepal Treaty of 1950 without permission from any authority.
Advocate General Kishore Datta said the two GJM leaders were not residing permanently in any state of India as claimed by their lawyers and are instead staying in the neighbouring country.
But the AG refused to divulge in an open court the details of their whereabouts that he claimed were obtained by intelligence agencies, and said he was willing to provide the information to the court in a sealed envelope.
Y J Dastur, the lawyer for Gurung and Giri, also said he was willing to divulge details of their residence to the judges only, since disclosing the information in an open court will lead the West Bengal police to them.
Gurung, Giri and several other leaders of the GJM, which later got divided into two factions with one being led by these two, fled Darjeeling after a police crackdown.
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A division bench comprising justices Joymalya Bagchi and M Mandal, after hearing both the parties on the issue on Tuesday, directed the two leaders and the West Bengal government to file affidavits detailing their claims on their residence.
The bench directed that hearing of the anticipatory bail prayers of Gurung and Giri will be taken up after the Christmas vacation, by which the two parties will be required to file their affidavits.