Elgaar Parishad case: HC grants bail to Mahesh Raut after 5 years, stays order for a week on NIA’s request

Raut, a land rights activist working in Gadchiroli area, had approached the high court with an appeal seeking regular bail in 2022 after the special NIA court rejected his bail plea in November 2021. Raut (35) was arrested on June 6, 2018 and is lodged at Taloja Central Jail in Navi Mumbai.

A division bench of Justice Ajey S Gadkari and Justice Sharmila U Deshmukh observed that while sections 13 (unlawful activities) and 38 (membership of a terrorist organisation) of the UAPA Act were prima facie applicable against Raut, “it cannot be said there are reasonable ground for believing that the accusations against Raut are prima facie true to attract offences under sections 16 (terrorist act), 17 (raising funds for terrorist act), 18 (conspiracy) and 39 (support given to a terrorist organisation)”.

Raut, through senior advocates Mihir Desai and Vijay Hiremath, submitted that he is not a member of the banned CPI(Maoist) and pointed out that he is a recipient of the Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellowship. He argued that the trial in the case has not commenced and it will take considerable time as the NIA has listed 336 witnesses in the case.

However, Additional Solicitor General Devang Vyas along with advocate Sandesh Patil for NIA opposed Raut’s plea. The NIA said Raut, who was a student of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), as per letters found on the computer of a co-accused, was involved in Maoist activities having direct impact on unity, integrity and sovereignty of India and should not be granted bail.

The bench observed that “there is no corroboration at all” that appellant Raut had in fact received the money from co-accused belonging to banned terrorist organisation CPI (Maoist).

The bench also observed that ‘no evidence of any persons who are alleged to have been recruited through Raut has been produced on record”. It also added that no covert or overt terrorist act has been attributed to the appellant and communications seized from computers of co-accused pertaining to Raut are “in the nature of hearsay”.

The bench observed that the appellant can at the most be said to be a member of CPI (Maoist) and therefore provisions of UAPA under sections 13 and 38 are attracted and the same provide maximum punishment of seven and ten years, respectively.

“The appellant is in pre-trial incarceration for more than five years and three months. There are no criminal antecedents at the discredit of appellant. Therefore, in our opinion, a case for grant of bail to the Appellant has been made out,” the bench held, while allowing the appeal and set aside a special court order of November 2021.

The court directed Raut to be released on executing a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh and sureties of same amount and be permitted to furnish cash bail for period of eight weeks after which he shall furnish solvent sureties. The bench asked him not to leave the jurisdiction of the high court without permission of the special NIA court.  It also directed Raut to attend a police station near his residence once in a fortnight for a year and thereafter once a month till conclusion of trial. The court also asked him to deposit his passport with the designated special court.

Mahesh Raut is the sixth accused in the Elgaar Parishad case to get bail from courts. So far, six of 16 accused have been granted bail by the high court or Supreme Court.  While Gautam Navlakha is under house arrest, Father Stan Swamy passed away while in judicial custody in 2021. Eight accused still remain in jail. Nine were arrested by the Pune Police in 2018, and seven were arrested by the NIA after it took over the investigation in 2020.

In July this year, noting that they had been in jail as undertrials for almost five years, the Supreme Court granted bail to co-accused Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira. In November last year, the Bombay High Court granted bail to Anand Teltumbde, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in the same month.

Telugu poet and activist Varavara Rao was granted bail on medical grounds by the Supreme Court in August last year. The Bombay HC had granted temporary medical bail to him in February 2021, which was extended from time to time.  Lawyer-activist Sudha Bharadwaj was granted default bail by the HC in December 2021.

On November 19 last year, Navlakha was moved from Taloja Central Prison to house arrest in Navi Mumbai after the Supreme Court rejected the NIA’s appeal against the court’s earlier order allowing his house arrest.

The other accused, including activists Sudhir Dhawle, Rona Wilson, Hany Babu, Surendra Gadling, Professor Shoma Sen, Ramesh Gaichor, Sagar Gorkhe and Jyoti Jagtap remain in jail.