After the Bombay High Court refused to intervene in a plea by eight accused in the Elgar Parishad case seeking a rectification of the 'factual errors' in the order refusing default bail to them, they told the court on Thursday that they will file a review petition against the order.
The accused persons, Sudhir Dawale, Dr P Varavara Rao, Rona Wilson, Advocate Surendra Gadling, Professor Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira, told filed an application in HC early this week claiming that its order denying them default bail was based on a factual error.
Their application was for 'speaking to minutes,' which is used for getting minor corrections made to an order of the court.
On Thursday, a division bench of Justices SS Shinde and NJ Jamadar said that the court could not pass any orders accepting or denying the claims made by the parties, or even listen to the arguments on merits since the accused had preferred to move the speaking to minutes application.
Sudeep Pasbola, counsel for one of the accused, said that they would withdraw the speaking to minutes application and file a fresh petition seeking review of the HC order.
The HC clarified that it was not granting any liberty or specific permission to the accused to file the review petition. However, if the procedure established under the law provided for a review petition, they were free to file the same.
On December 1 this year, the HC had granted default bail to Sudha Bharadwaj observing that she had filed the default bail plea before the NIA sought extension of time for filing chargesheet.
The HC, then had denied default bail plea to these eight accused as they had failed to exercise their right to seek default bail in time.
Dhawale, Wilson, Gadling, Sen, and Raut had filed default bail pleas before the Pune Sessions court on September 26, 2018, after the 90 days period of their arrest got over and the chargesheet remained to be filed. The first charge sheet against them was filed only on November 15, 2018.
Gonsalves, Rao, and Ferriera told HC that they had applied for default bail on November 30, 2018. This was rejected on November 6, 2019, along with Bharadwaj's default bail plea.
While granting default bail to Bhardwaj, the HC had set aside this November 6, 2019.
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