Mumbai: Advocate Surendra Gadling, who is in prison for his alleged role in the Bhima Koregaon violence of 2018, has approached the Bombay High Court seeking default bail in the case. He has challenged the order of the special court rejecting his bail plea on June 28, 2022.
Justifying the delay in filing of the appeal, Gadling has blamed the prison department for the delay of nearly two months in receiving certified copies of the order of the special court and sought condonation of delay of delay by 10 days.
A division bench headed by Justice AS Gadkari on Wednesday issued a notice to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) seeking its reply to the application for condoning the delay in filing the appeal. The HC has kept the matter for hearing after two weeks.
Mr Gadling was represented by advocate Yashodeep Deshmukh who was appointed by the HC’s Legal Services Committee. He was arrested in June 2018 and was booked under the various sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Indian Penal Code along with other civil liberty activists alleging a larger conspiracy to overthrow the government and to further Maoist agenda.
After his plea for default bail was rejected by the special court, his colleague advocate P Larson filed an application for a certified copy of the order on June 29, 2022 and received it on 15 July, 2022. However, Mr Gadling has claimed that he was able to get the copy of the order only on August 22 when he was taken to the court on a hearing date, which was over a month after Mr Larson received the copy.
As per the NIA act, an appeal has to be filed within 30 days. Mr Larson had met him in the prison with the certified copy of the order and the appeal on August 13, 2022. He told Mr Gadling that he would leave the documents at the prison gate. The plea, however, alleges that the jailor later told him the documents weren’t deposited.
Subsequently, another colleague, advocate Barun Kumar, visited Mr Gadling on August 20 with the same documents and informed him about the prison officials’ refusal to accept the documents the first time. They then informed the Taloja Central prison’s jailor that the documents would be left behind and while he initially agreed, prison officials later asked him to get the order copy, appeal and other documents via a court order or post.
