Bombay HC grants Elgar Parishad accused Anand Teltumbde bail

The Bombay High Court on November 14, Friday, granted bail to activist Dalit scholar Anand Teltumbde who is named an accused in the Elgar Parishad case. The court though has stayed order for a week to let the National investigation Agency to approach Supreme Court to oppose bail.

Teltumbde, who is currently lodged at Taloja prison in Navi Mumbai, was arrested by the NIA in April 2020. The 73-year-old was reportedly granted bail on surety of Rs one lakh.

A division bench of Justices AS Gadkari and MN Jadhav allowed the bail plea filed by Teltumbde. He approached the HC after special court refused to grant him bail.

Teltumbde's bail plea

In his plea, Teltumbde had claimed that he was never present at the December 31, 2017 Elgar Parishad event held in Pune nor made any provocative speeches.

Regarding NIA's allegations, he had earlier said that they were based on one letter by Prakash addressed to one "Comrade Anand" which the agency presumes to be him. NIA had also alleged that he is not only part of the banned outfit Communist Party (Maoist) and said he had received funds based on the latter.

Regarding the funds, he pointed out that there has been no probe if he had received those funds mentioned in the letter. He also pointed out that the letter was not recovered from him but from his co-accused Rona Wilson.

Whether the letter reached him and whether the contents were implemented are not at all part of the investigation, he had said.

The prosecution's case is that provocative and inflammatory speeches were made at the event that was allegedly backed by banned terror outfit CPI (Maoist), which later led to violence at Koregaon Bhima village near Pune.

Teltumbde is the third accused in the case to be granted bail. Poet Varavara Rao is out on a medical bail and lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj is out on regular bail.

With PTI inputs

Published on: Friday, November 18, 2022, 01:53 PM IST