3 min readMumbaiSep 24, 2023 05:06 PM IST
First published on: Sep 21, 2023 at 09:06 PM IST
Although the Bombay High Court Thursday stayed its order after granting bail to Mahesh Raut, an accused in the Elgaar Parishad case, the activist became the sixth to secure a bail from a court of law.
The High Court had initially allowed a regular bail plea of Raut but stayed its order for a week after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) sought a stay for 14 days so that it can approach the Supreme Court.
Of the total 16 accused who were held, six of them (including Raut) have received bails from either the High Court or the Supreme Court. Among the accused who are still in custody are Gautam Navlakha, who is under house arrest.
One of the accused, Father Stan Swamy, an 84-year-old Jesuit priest and tribal rights activist, passed away in July 2021 while in judicial custody.
As many as eight of the accused still remain in jail, including activists Sudhir Dhawle, Rona Wilson, Hany Babu, Surendra Gadling, Professor Shoma Sen, Ramesh Gaichor, Sagar Gorkhe and Jyoti Jagtap.
Of the 16 accused, 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 bench led by Justice A S Gadkari on November 18, 2022 granted bail to Anand Teltumbde. The Supreme Court had dismissed the NIA’s appeal against Teltumbde’s bail in the same month, after which he was released on November 26 last year.
Teltumbde, Gonsalves and Ferreira were granted bail on merits.
The Bombay High Court had refused bail to another accused — Jyoti Jagtap — a member of the Kabir Kala Manch (KKM) in October last year.
Telugu poet and activist Varavara Rao was granted bail on medical grounds by the Supreme Court in August last year. The Bombay High Court had granted temporary medical bail to Rao in February 2021, which was extended from time to time.
Lawyer-activist Sudha Bharadwaj was granted default bail by the High Court in December 2021 and the pleas of eight co-accused were rejected by the court.
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.
Former Delhi University associate professor Hany Babu was temporarily released twice on medical grounds to undergo treatment for eye ailments at private hospitals in Mumbai at his own expense. In September, last year, the Bombay High Court dismissed an appeal by Babu challenging rejection of his bail plea by a sessions court.
Mahesh Raut, an accused in the Elgaar Parishad case. (Express archives) 
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