When the Bombay High Court, this Thursday, granted bail to former Delhi University professor Hany Babu, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case, it took a step closer to questioning and nailing the continued unjust incarceration of academics, writers, and others in a case that dates back to Jan 2018. Babu was in prison for five years and seven months, which the HC division bench of Justices AS Gadkari and RR Bhonsale termed an infringement of the Right to Life. “Prolonged incarceration and the unlikelihood of the trial being completed in a reasonable time or near future necessitate a consequential release of the undertrial on bail,” it observed. The bench set aside the Special NIA Court’s order of February 2022, which had rejected Babu’s bail plea.
Babu was among the 16 accused, called the BK-16, in the violence that broke out in Bhima-Koregaon on January 1, 2018, when Dalits had gathered in large numbers to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Mahar Regiment’s victory over the Peshwas. Activists of hundreds of Dalit, Ambedkarite, Bahujan, and other left-of-centre organisations were at the Elgar Parishad at Pune’s historic Shaniwarwada the previous evening to protest the ‘new Peshwai’, a metaphorical reference to the BJP-led government they termed anti-Dalit and anti-Bahujan. The violence the following morning was linked to this; speakers and others were arrested under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
The mastermind of the violence that took one life and injured many was traced, in fact, to right-wing organisations led by Milind Ekbote, who was later arrested, and Sambhaji Bhide, who was not named in the case. Instead, the regime used the Elgar Parishad meeting to crack down on who it termed as ‘Maoists’ or left-wing extremists for indulging in terrorist acts and sedition. The patently unconstitutional nature of this case handled by the NIA—the incarceration claimed the life of 83-year-old Father Stan Swamy—was brought out repeatedly in bail pleas; rights’ organisations termed the entire case false and fabricated.
Despite chargesheets running into 20,000-plus pages, nearly 360 witnesses, and a non-inimical government, the prosecution has not been able to bring the case to trial. This is no accident; the UAPA was designed to muzzle dissent and keep people inconvenient to a regime behind bars for a long time without trial or bail. In citing the inordinate delay as a reason to offer bail to Babu, the Bombay HC laid its finger on the pulse. The prosecution cannot indefinitely keep people behind bars under the shadow of the UAPA to suit political motives. More than nine accused, besides Babu, have been enlarged on bail so far, showing the hollowness of the charges against them under the draconian Act. The larger question of the sustainability of the case remains, as does the malintentioned political use of the Act.
