The Bombay High Court on Monday granted bail to lawyer Surendra Gadling in the Bhima Koregaon case, saying that prolonged incarceration as an undertrial prisoner is a ground for relief, Bar and Bench reported.
Gadling had spent more than eight years in custody, said a bench of Justices AS Gadkari and Kamal Khata, adding that the trial in the matter was yet to begin.
The case pertains to the violence that broke out near Pune on January 1, 2018, a day after a conclave called the Elgar Parishad was organised to mark the 200th anniversary of the battle of Bhima Koregaon. One person was killed in the violence and several others were injured.
The National Investigation Agency has alleged that the Elgar Parishad was part of a larger Maoist conspiracy to stoke caste violence, destabilise the Union government and assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Sixteen persons were arrested in the case.
Five years on, the trial in the case is yet to begin.
Gadling, arrested in 2018, was the last among the 16 persons named in the case to be in prison.
On Monday, the NIA opposed Gadling’s petition, citing other cases registered against him.
This included a 2016 arson case, where the lawyer was booked for alleged criminal conspiracy and setting fire to more than 80 vehicles transporting iron ore from the Surajgarh mines in Gadchiroli district.
Although he was granted bail on Monday in the Bhima Koregaon case, the lawyer will remain in jail as his bail application in the 2016 arson case is pending before the Supreme Court.
Among the accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, the Bombay High Court has granted bail to Rona Wilson, Sudhir Dhawale, Sudha Bharadwaj, Anand Teltumbde and Hany Babu. The Supreme Court granted bail to Varavara Rao on medical grounds and to Shoma Sen, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira on merits.
It has also granted bail to Gautam Navlakha and Jyoti Jagtap.
One person accused in the case, Jesuit priest Stan Swamy, died in prison in 2021.
When the Supreme Court in 2023 granted bail to two persons accused in the case, it noted that the primary evidence cited by the NIA – a batch of letters – was of “weak probative value or quality”. In addition, a digital forensics firm, Arsenal Consulting, concluded that false evidence had been planted on the laptops and devices of the accused persons.
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