Mumbai:
The Bombay High Court on Wednesday granted bail to Delhi-based researcher Rona Wilson and activist Sudhir Dhawale, arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case in 2018, stating the trial in the case was yet to start.
Granting the bail against a surety of Rs one lakh each, a division bench of Justices A S Gadkari and Kamal Khata noted that the two had spent more than six years in jail as under-trial prisoners.
Wilson and Dhawale were directed by the High Court to appear before the special NIA court during the trial, surrender their passports, and not leave the city until the trial is over.
“They have been in jail since 2018. Even the charges in the case are yet to be framed. The prosecution has cited over 300 witnesses, and thus there is no possibility of the trial to conclude in the near future,” the court said.
Defence lawyers said once they get the operative order from HC, they would move the special NIA court to complete formalities for the release of Wilson and Dhawale from the Taloja prison near Mumbai.
With this bail order, 10 out of 16 people arrested have got bail so far in the case, which was registered by Pune police in 2018 alleging that the accused were involved in provocative speeches delivered at the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017, triggering violence at Koregaon-Bhima in Pune district the next day.
The Pune police had claimed the conclave was backed by the Maoists.
Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Anand Teltumbde, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Shoma Sen, Gautam Navlakha and Mahesh Raut were granted bail earlier.
However, Raut remained inside jail after the NIA challenged his bail order in the Supreme Court. On Tuesday the special NIA court granted him interim bail for 18 days to enable him to appear for an LLB exam.
Stan Swamy, one of the accused, died in 2021 while in prison.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) took over the probe from Pune police and a chargesheet has been filed in the case. However, the special NIA court is yet to frame charges against the accused.
While granting relief, the high court said it was not dealing with the merits of the case at this stage. The NIA did not seek a stay to the High Court order.
Defence lawyers Mihir Desai and Sudeep Pasbola had argued that the two accused were incarcerated since their arrest in the case.
Wilson, who was arrested in June 2018 from his home in Delhi, was described by the probe agencies as allegedly being one of the top brass of urban Maoists. Dhawale was accused of being an active member of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).
In August 2021, the NIA submitted a chargesheet claiming that Wilson and other accused in the case were active members of the banned terrorist organisation, and alleged that they wanted to establish a “janta sarkar” via revolution supported by a commitment to protracted armed struggle to undermine and seize power from the state.
The accused were charged with over a dozen offences including, “promoting enmity between different groups” and “doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony”, “waging war against the government” and several sections under stringent anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
Wilson had been granted 14-day bail earlier to attend his father’s funeral.
The arrest of Wilson figures in the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) report which claims that UN human rights experts have expressed concern that the charges against him and other activists in the case are “being used to silence human rights defenders who promote and protect the rights of India’s Dalit, indigenous, and tribal communities.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
