While the National Investigation Agency (NIA) sought a stay on the operation of the bail order so as to appeal before the Supreme Court, the HC refused the request, stating that Babu has been in jail for over five years.
Prolonged incarceration without trial amounts to infringement of the right to life under the Constitution, the Bombay high court said while urging a special court to expedite the trial in the 2018 Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.
The Bombay High Court has granted bail to researcher Rona Wilson and activist Sudhir Dhawale, arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case. The court noted that they had been in jail since 2018 and the trial was yet to start. The court said the two had spent more than six years in jail as under-trial prisoners. The NIA, the prosecution agency, did not seek a stay to the HC order. Eight other activists have been granted bail in the case, which pertains to provocative speeches allegedly delivered at the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted bail to activist Gautam Navlakha in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.
Supreme Court Justice M M Sundresh recused himself from hearing the bail plea of advocate Surendra Gadling, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case. The case has been adjourned multiple times.
The foundation of the Bhima Koregaon case was blown to bits by a senior policeman, reports Jyoti Punwani.
Teltumbde is the third of the 16 accused arrested in the case to be released on bail.
This is Navlakha's second round of appeal in the high court seeking regular bail.
Swamy, a Jesuit priest and activist, was arrested from Ranchi in October, 2020, and has since been lodged at the Taloja Central Jail in Navi Mumbai.
The case relates to Elgar Parishad, a conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017. Pune Police had alleged that it had been backed by Maoists, and provocative speeches made there led to caste violence near Bhima-Koregaon war memorial the next day.
A special court in Mumbai has denied bail to three persons accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, saying that the material on record suggests that the trio, along with other members of the CPI-Maoist, a banned organisation, hatched a "serious conspiracy" to create unrest in the country and to overthrow the Modi government.
A government lawyer told the Bombay high court on Friday that though prison inmates can talk to their relatives or lawyers on phone, she was not sure if the facility could be granted to activist Gautam Navlakha, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.
The larger conspiracy of Communist Party of India-Maoists was to overthrow the democratic system in the country, and the accused were working in that direction, the chargesheet claimed.
Poet-activist Varavara Rao, 81, is the only accused in the case to have secured an interim bail. The Bombay high court had in February this year granted Rao conditional bail for six months considering his medical condition. Rao had been in jail since his arrest in August 2018.
The HC had in its order last week said Bharadwaj was entitled to bail and its denial would be in breach of her fundamental right to life and personal liberty, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.
With all the evasions, one assertion made by the Pune (Rural) police stood out: They had found no connection of the Elgar Parishad with the violent incidents of January 1, 2018. Yet, the case against the 'Bhima Koregaon 16', which is based on exactly this alleged connection, continues, and seven of the accused continue to be behind bars under the UAPA, explains Jyoti Punwani.
She has been in custody as an undertrial since her arrest in 2018.
Talking to reporters in Kolhapur, Pawar said it was not right on the part of the Centre to hand over the probe into the case, which was with the Pune police, to the NIA as law and order was a state subject. NCP leader and Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said Uddhav Thackeray had overruled him on the probe in the case.
Navlakha approached the HC last year, challenging the special NIA court's order of July 12, 2020 that rejected his plea for statutory bail.
'The moment they fall foul of the party in power, they become unsafe. Then nobody can guarantee their safety.'
Researcher Rona Wilson and activist Sudhir Dhawale, accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, were released on bail from a Navi Mumbai prison on Friday, more than six years after they were arrested. The duo walked out of the Taloja jail after completing bail formalities before the special NIA court, over a fortnight after they were granted bail by the Bombay High Court. The HC granted bail to Wilson and Dhawale on January 8, noting they had been in jail since 2018 and the trial in the case, in which anti-terror act UAPA has been invoked, was yet to start. Apart from Dhawale and Wilson, 14 other activists and academicians were arrested in the case. Eight of them have been granted bail till now, with one, Mahesh Raut, still in jail as the appeal filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) against his bail is pending before the Supreme Court. Jesuit priest and activist Stan Swamy, one of the accused, died in 2021 while lodged in judicial custody. The case pertains to provocative speeches allegedly delivered at the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017, triggering violence at Koregaon-Bhima, a village outside Pune city, the next day. The Pune police had claimed the conclave was backed by Maoists. The NIA later took over the probe.
The Bombay High Court on Friday adjourned till October 13 the hearing on a bail extension plea filed by poet-activist Varavara Rao, an accused in the Elgar Parishad case, and said he need not surrender before Taloja jail authorities till October 14.
The court has also said it does not find the accusations against Teltumbde to be 'inherently improbable' or 'wholly unbelievable', and prima facie he was involved in furthering activities of a banned organisation.
Use of social media or the Internet by Navlakha could prove to be dangerous, NIA counsel, additional solicitor general Anil Singh, said while opposing the septuagenarian activist's plea that he be kept under house arrest.
Police on Tuesday said they have started recording statements of people associated with the controversial Veera Sathidar memorial programme held on May 13 in Nagpur, where the poem was recited, while an official informed investigation into the case was at a sensitive stage.
'We have been fighting to treat political prisoners differently.' 'Except for Hyderabad and Kolkata, the concept of keeping political prisoners separate doesn't exist in India.'
For four days, the officer avoided giving any straight answers, becoming the first witness in the 48 witnesses that have appeared so far, to have achieved this feat.
Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case accused and former Nagpur University professor Shoma Sen was released from a prison in Mumbai on Wednesday afternoon, an official said.
The case pertains to the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017, which according to the Pune police was funded by Maoists.
Either this affidavit was prepared a long time back, or, Ambedkar has not been following the Commission's hearings.
Senior advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan, appearing for Navlakha, contested the figure of Rs 1.64 crore saying the agency's calculation of the amount payable was wrong and contrary to the relevant rules.
The Bombay high court on Thursday granted bail to activist Mahesh Raut, arrested in the Elgar Parishad Maoist links case.
The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday registered a money laundering case in the Elgar Parishad and Bhima Koregaon violence case and has begun investigations, according to a source.
If an extension is granted, the Commission's next hearing will be a long one: From October 16-28, so as to complete the cross-examination of all remaining witnesses.
Shivaji Pawar made a startling revelation: Though the subject matter of his investigation was the January 1 violence, he had not examined any of the witnesses to that violence.
'I was laughing and crying at the same time. Right now, just extremely happy that she will be out and amongst us soon.'
Activists Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira, accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, are likely to walk out of jail only next week after securing bail from the Supreme Court on Friday as certain formalities are to be completed before they are released, defence lawyers said in Mumbai.
In a relief to academic-activist Shoma Kanti Sen, arrested in June 2018 in connection with the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, the Supreme Court on Friday granted her bail while taking cognisance of the "composite effect" of the delay in framing charges coupled with her prolonged detention.
Social activist Gautam Navlakha, accused of having links to Maoists and Pakistan's spy agency ISI, on Friday withdrew from the Supreme Court his application seeking to be shifted to Delhi from Mumbai under house arrest.
This senior cop who deposed in such detail about the Elgar Parishad, however, claimed to know nothing about the opposition to it from organisations such as Milind Ekbote's Samastha Hindu Aghadi as well as Pune's then Mayor Mukta Tilak.