MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday granted bail to Rona Wilson and Sudhir Dhawale, two accused in the January 2018 Elgar Parishad Maoist Links case. The HC division bench of Justices AS Gadkari and Kamal Khata granted bail on the grounds of the duo’s prolonged incarceration with trial completion far off, as charges against the accused have not been framed yet. The HC order, not on the merits of the case, factored in that over 300 witnesses would have to be examined and the trial too would take long to conclude.
The court posted the bail for PR bonds of Rs 1 lakh each and also imposed several other conditions requiring them to report before the National Investigation Agency (NIA) every Monday. Last July, the HC denied default bail to Wilson, Dhawale, and three others in the case.
The case arose out of an FIR lodged first by the Vishrambaug police station in Pune in January 2018 for alleged inflammatory speeches made. In January 2020, the probe was handed over to the NIA with the anti-terror law, the UAPA, being invoked.
The duo are among 16 academicians, lawyers, and activists booked under the anti-terror law. Wilson, a resident of Delhi, was accused of participating in the recruitment of cadre for the banned CPI (Maoist) Party. The allegations against him are that he conspired with co-accused Surendra Gadling and Mahesh Raut to assassinate the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and recruit cadre to the CPI (Maoist), a banned outfit.
His lawyers argued that the entire chargesheet is silent on and doesn’t allege any terrorist act or unlawful activity. All that is alleged is that the petitioner and others, allegedly members of a proscribed organisation, conspired to organise the Elgar Parishad to ferment violence, which violence was indulged in by them to promote their objectives. Wilson’s lawyer submitted and argued that the allegations were belied by the fact that violence did not erupt in Pune following the Elgar Parishad but in Koregaon Bhima following saffron flag-holding protestors marching there.
So far, eight of the 16 accused arrested in the case, including Sudha Bharadwaj, P Varavara Rao, Anand Teltumbde, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Mahesh Raut, and now Wilson and Dhawale, have been granted bail by either the High Court or the Supreme Court. One accused, Gautam Navalakh, is under house arrest on SC orders, and one, Father Stan Swamy, died on July 5, 2021, while in judicial custody, but at a Mumbai hospital.
On December 31, 2017, the Elgar Parishad was organised at Shaniwar Wada in Pune by Kabir Kala Manch (KKM), a left-leaning cultural outfit, and other organisations, on the eve of the 200th anniversary of the battle of Koregaon Bhima. On January 1, 2018, caste clashes erupted at the Koregaon Bhima war memorial.
