The eight others are Sudhir Dawale, Varavara Rao, Rona Wilson, Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira.
Sudha Bharadwaj, Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson, Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut, P Varavara Rao, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira.
New Delhi: The Bombay high court on Wednesday, December 1, granted default bail to Sudha Bharadwaj but rejected the default bail pleas filed by eight other accused in the Elgar Parishad case.
The eight others are Sudhir Dawale, Varavara Rao, Rona Wilson, Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira.
A bench of Justices S.S. Shinde and N.J. Jamadar has directed Sudha Bharadwaj to be produced before the Special NIA court on December 8 to decide the conditions of bail, LiveLaw has reported.
Further details of the court order are awaited.
In total, 16 activists, academics and lawyers were arrested by the Pune Police and the NIA in the Elgar Parishad case. Several of them suffer from illnesses and their medical bail pleas have been rejected multiple times. The oldest of them, Father Stan Swamy, died in July this year. He had contracted COVID-19 while in custody.
Critics of the government have rejected the claims made by the NIA in the case, describing the investigation as a witchhunt against dissenters and rights activists.
Bharadwaj’s plea
In August, the high court had reserved its verdict on the default bail plea filed by lawyer-activist Bharadwaj.
Bharadwaj had approached the HC earlier, seeking default bail on the ground that Pune additional sessions judge KD Vadane, who had taken cognisance of the police chargesheet in the case filed in 2019, was not authorised to do so.
Bharadwaj had annexed RTI (Right to Information) replies from the HC to demonstrate that judge Vadane was not a designated special judge, as was necessary to adjudicate offences under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
Senior counsel Yug Chaudhry, who appeared for Bharadwaj, had earlier told the HC that Vadane pretended to be a special judge and had signed orders as the special judge.
In response, advocate general Ashutosh Kumbhakoni and additional solicitor general Anil Singh for NIA submitted that cases under UAPA would go before a special court only after the National Investigation Agency is entrusted with the investigation, according to LiveLaw.
The NIA took over the case in January 2020.
Eight others’ plea
In the other plea filed through advocate R. Satyanarayanan, the eight accused had pointed out three notifications issued by the Maharashtra government which said that special court had been constituted for Pune city, Bar and Bench has reported.
The counsel for the petitioners, senior advocate Sudeep Pasbola, told the high court that since all the accused persons in the case had been charged for scheduled offences under UAPA, besides sections of the Indian Penal Code, only a designated special court could have taken cognisance of the case.
It challenged orders by judge R.M. Pande, taking cognisance of the chargesheet and rejecting their default bail application under Section 167(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, noting that as per the notifications judge Pande had not been designated a special judge under the NIA Act.
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