Year after being granted bail, Elgaar Parishad accused remains in jail as stay extended

The NIA filed an appeal immediately and it was heard for the first time in the SC on September 27 2023. So far, the case has come up for hearing in the SC 13 times. During these hearings, the court heard submissions on tagging of cases with other co-accused. Since then, activist Shoma Sen was granted bail in April and Gautam Navlakha in May by the SC.

Family members and legal representatives of Raut said that the extended stay on his bail, now for a year, has been an unprecedented delay in delivering justice.

“He has been in jail for the past six years with the trial yet to begin. Whenever we speak to him, we feel that this past year has been the toughest for him in jail. Once he was granted bail, he was hoping to be out soon. With the stay extended for such a long period of time, it is a feeling of limbo and delay in justice,” a family member of Raut, who did not wish to be named, said. They also added that after grant of bail, Raut may have begun planning contributing to his family financially again as his mother is retired.

The Pune police had arrested Raut in 2018 alleging his links with banned organisation, CPI (Maoist). The High Court, while granting bail to Raut, a former Prime Minister Rural Development fellow, said that ‘there is no corroboration at all’ that he had received money from the co-accused belonging to CPI (Maoist) or that a person was recruited through him. A member of his legal team said that even though a stay was granted, it should have been decided upon as soon as possible than being extended, keeping him in incarceration despite grant of bail now since a year.

In June, the SC had permitted Raut to come out on interim bail for two weeks to attend final rituals of his grandmother. Since his return to Taloja jail in July, the stay has continued to be extended.