The Bombay High Court on Wednesday asked the National Investigation Agency (NIA) whether advocate Surendra Gadling, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist link case, can be permitted to personally appear before the court to argue his bail plea.
A division bench of Justices Ajey Gadkari and PD Naik asked NIA advocate Sandesh Patil to take instructions from the agency’s officers and instruct the court on March 23.
Gadling had filed his plea for seeking default bail from prison through a legal aid cell advocate. He then sent a letter from the jail seeking that he be permitted to argue his case in person. He wrote that since the chargesheet was voluminous, running into around 30,000 pages, it would be difficult to brief the lawyer about the case.
After going through the letter on Wednesday, the judges noted that Gadling himself was a lawyer and had argued his bail plea before the special NIA court. The court sought NIA’s response before passing any order saying that later there should be any blame.
The HC has kept the matter for hearing on March 23.
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