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Mumbai: Activist Sudha Bharadwaj, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist link case, was released on bail from a jail here on Thursday after spending more than three years in jail.
Bhardwaj (60), who was accused of being part of a criminal conspiracy to overthrow the central government, was granted default bail by the Bombay High Court on December 1. The HC had then directed a special NIA court to decide on the conditions. imposed on him.
On Wednesday, a special NIA court directed Bharadwaj to be released on bail on a surety of Rs 50,000.
After completing the formalities, Bhardwaj walked out of the Byculla Women’s Jail on Thursday afternoon.
As she got into a waiting car, Bharadwaj shook hands at the media persons waiting outside the jail.
The case in which Bharadwaj and others have been arrested pertains to alleged provocative speeches made at the Elgar Parishad conference held at Shaniwarwada in Pune on December 31, 2017, which the police claimed led to the Koregaon-Bhima war the next day. Violence took place near the memorial. On the outskirts of the city.
The Pune Police, which initially handled the case, had claimed that the conclave was backed by Maoists. The investigation of the case was later transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
Bhardwaj was arrested in August 2018 under the provisions of the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
The special NIA court had also imposed several other conditions on Bhardwaj, including not leaving Mumbai without the court’s permission, handing over his passport to the NIA and not speaking to the media about the case.
The court also directed him not to indulge in any such activity on the basis of which an FIR was registered against him.
After the High Court granted default bail to Bhardwaj, the NIA had approached the Supreme Court challenging the order. However, the top court rejected the appeal of the NIA.
The HC, in its order last week, had held that Bhardwaj was entitled to bail and its refusal would be violative of the fundamental right to life and personal liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.
However, the high court had rejected the bail applications filed by eight co-accused of Bharadwaj, including activists Sudhir Dhawale, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira and Varavara Rao, in the case.
Bhardwaj is the first person among the 16 activists and academicians arrested in the case to be granted default bail. Poet-activist Varavara Rao, who is also an accused in the case, is currently out on medical bail.
The accused, in their bail pleas, had made the usual preliminary argument that the sessions court, which had taken cognizance of the case filed against them by the Pune Police in 2018, did not have legal jurisdiction to do so.
According to their arguments, two additional sessions judges of the Pune sessions court, KD Vadane, who remanded Bhardwaj to custody, and RM Pandey, who remanded Dhawale and seven other petitioners to custody in 2018, were designated as special judges. had not been. Therefore, they could not take cognizance of their case registered for scheduled offenses under UAPA.
Read also: Court allows Sudha Bhardwaj to be released from jail on bail of Rs 50,000
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