Court Rejects NIA's Plea to Put Elgar Parishad Accused Back in Jail

New Delhi: A Mumbai court has rejected the National Investigation Agency (NIA)'s plea to put four individuals accused in the Elgar Parishad case back in jail on the grounds that they violated their bail conditions.

Special judge Chakor Baviskar on Saturday (August 29) ruled in four orders dealing with Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, Sudha Bharadwaj and Vernon Gonsalves that there is no evidence they gathered at a function in Mumbai earlier this year looking to commit crimes similar to what they are accused of committing.

Nor is there any basis for the NIA's charge that they had assembled to propagate Maoism or the ‘urban Naxal movement’, the judge said.

After the four accused met at the Mumbai Press Club on January 19 the NIA sought that they be placed back in jail, recalling that their bail conditions required them not to establish communication with any co-accused.

But judge Baviskar ruled that this bail condition is applied to prevent accused persons from contacting or communicating with each other “to be involved (again) in similar activities” as the ones they are accused of committing.

“Sans any evidence to that effect, certainly, mere gathering of the accused falls short to conclude that the bail condition is breached,” he said.

There is nothing on record to show that the accused persons initiated the January 19 gathering or that they contacted or communicated with each other immediately before or after that meeting, the judge said.

Drawing an analogy, the judge reasoned that the accused would meet each other in court premises during case hearings and that by itself would not count as a violation of their bail condition. “It is but human that they even might have talked about this case, facts of this case, fate of co-accused and such related issues,” he said.

He also remarked that it is easier to reject one's bail application than to send them to jail after they've bonded out, saying that the latter can only be permitted in “very cogent and overwhelming circumstances”.

Though the NIA did allege that the four accused persons gathered at the press club with a view to propagating the ideology of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) and deciding the “future course of action for spreading the ‘urban Naxal’ movement”, the judge said there was no evidence on that front.

In fact, footage of the January 19 meeting, though lacking audio, points to a “tempo, temperament and overall mood” during the gathering which made it unlikely that “serious issues” like Maoism were discussed, judge Baviskar said.

However he cautioned all four accused against participating in events that risk a violation of their bail conditions. Upon “seeing other accused to have gathered at that function … to avoid further complications, the accused could and should have recused from there without being indulged in further function [sic],” the judge said.

Registered by the Pune police in 2018 and handed over to the NIA two years later, the Elgar Parishad case has been mired in controversy since the very start.

While the state had initially claimed that 16 persons – including Gonsalves and Ferreira – played an active role in “provoking” a crowd at Bhima Koregaon on January 1, 2018 with their speeches and triggering violence on the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon, they were later accused of being “urban Naxals”.

Claims of their alleged association with the Maoist party are based on purported emails and other evidence allegedly retrieved from electronic devices belonging to the accused. These claims, however, have been challenged by many independent forensic organisations.

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