Elgar Parishad case: Activists say entitled to relief on same grounds as Sudha Bharadwaj

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday granted two weeks to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Maharashtra government to file their replies to a review petition filed by three activists accused in the Elgar Parishad case. Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, and Vernon Gonsalves have challenged a previous order of the HC that refused to grant them default bail in the case.

The three have challenged a December 1, 2021 order passed by the bench led by Justice Shinde that granted default bail to lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj, a co-accused in the case, but denied default bail to several other accused persons, including them.

At the time, HC had said that the accused persons, other than Bharadwaj, had not filed their pleas seeking default bail before the lower court within the time stipulated by law.

In their pleas filed through advocates Sudeep Pasbola and R Satyanarayanan, the accused, however, said that the HC’s order was based on a “factual error”, for it failed to note that the lower court had rejected the default bail pleas filed by Bharadwaj, the three petitioners, and two other co-accused persons through a common order.

Hence, if HC, in granting bail to Bharadwaj, set aside the lower court order of November 6, 2019,the others too were entitled to relief. The bench will hear the matter further on February 24.

Published on: Thursday, February 10, 2022, 09:08 AM IST