A Timeline Leading To Bombay HC's Default Bail To Elgar Parishad Case Accused Sudha Bharadwaj

The Bombay High Court accepted the default bail plea of social activist Sudha Bharadwaj, an accused of the Elgar Parishad case. She would be brought before the National Investigation Agency (NIA) court on December 8, which would decide her bail conditions and further finalize her bail. However, the bench rejected the default bail plea of the other eight co-accused, including Sudhir Dhawale, Mahesh Raut, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Rona Wilson, and Shoma Sen, Surendra Gadling and Varavara Rao, in the case. The Pune Police had filed a chargesheet against Bharadwaj for her alleged ''active association'' with the banned CPI (Maoist).

The plea filed by Bharadwaj states that Judge KD Wadane passed two orders, one on November 26, 2018, that granted an extension of 180 days for filing the charge sheet, whereas the Criminal Procedure Court (CrPC) mandates 90 days. The second order was passed on December 21, 2019, in which Judge Wadane took cognizance of the case and issued orders for further procedure. One of the orders showed the Judge's signatures as "special judge" whereas the second showed it as "Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) special judge". However, Bharadwaj's lawyer, Advocate Yug Chaudhary, contended that as per the information from a Right to Information (RTI) application, Mr Wadane is an Additional Judge and not a particular judge. Moreover, UAPA neither had special courts nor special judges.

Who Is Sudha Bharadwaj?

Popularly known as Sudha Didi or Sudha Ji for her activism for trade unions and long-existing struggle to rectify the injustices done to the Adivasi community and other marginalized communities in Chhattisgarh. She was born in 1961 in Boston, USA. Still, she gave up her US citizenship when she was 18 and came to India and attended a maths degree programme in the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. She worked extensively with labour unions in Chhattisgarh and became a lawyer at 40 to represent the workers better. Bharadwaj was strong opposition in several cases against big mining companies and voiced for free legal aid to the marginalized communities, particularly the Adivasis. After the violence broke out at Elgar Parishad, she was arrested for her alleged links with the Maoists, and after that, she has spent over four years in Byculla Jail in Mumbai.

What Happened On January 1, 2018?

Lakhs of people belonging to the Dalit Community came together near Pune to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon- won by the British Army, which comprised soldiers from the community in a majority. However, violence was reported on that day, and based on an eyewitness's account; an FIR was registered at the Pimpri Police Station. The Police complaint named several Hindutva leaders like Milind Ekbote and Sambhaji Bhide for alleged incitement. Six days later, on January 8, another FIR was registered at a Pune Police Station that claimed that the violence took place due to another event held on December 31, 2017, called Elgar Parishad at Shaniwar Wada in the city.

The second FIR named six people from the cultural group Kabir Kala Manch for organizing the event. Three months later, the police conducted several searches on ten people and seized their electronic devices. The police claimed in its chargesheet that their searches led them to Sudha Bharadwaj, a resident of Faridabad in Haryana. In January 2020, the National Investigation Agency took over the investigation from the Pune Police. Apart from the nine arrested initially, which included Bharadwaj, six more were taken under remand.

What Did The Bombay HC Say In Previous Hearings?

The Pune Police's chargesheet had opposed Bharadwaj's plea on several grounds, mentioning that the documents recovered from her possession mentioned her alleged links to a banned organization. The Bombay HC said that one of the six documents recovered from her of a Special Women's Meeting held on January 2, 2018, allegedly attended by Bharadwaj and Sen, could not be treated as a piece of incriminating evidence against her because it had the data of the calls between the two, that showed them at different locations at the same time.

However, the other five documents allegedly showed discussions about the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in the states of Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra. Moreover, the documents also reportedly mentioned the Indian Association of Peoples' Lawyers (IAPL), of which Bharadwaj is a vice-president, a seminar in Delhi on Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and documents claiming discussions about funds in the banned organization. Therefore, the Bombay High Court denied her bail in October 2019, saying that those documents show prima-facie evidence in the case against her.

What Have Her Supporters Said?

IAPL is the Indian arm of the International Association of People's Lawyers. It issued a statement saying that the case against Bharadwaj was an attempt to silence the lawyers who work for the human rights of marginalized communities, social activists and other social organizations.

Previous Interim Bail Applications By Bharadwaj

After the COVID-19 outbreak, Bharadwaj had appeared in a special court on medical grounds because she suffered from co-morbidities that included diabetes, high blood pressure, and also mentioned that she had previously suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis. Her daughter Maaysha had claimed that Bharadwaj had developed cardiac ailments, clearly "'because of the stress she was facing in the jail". However, the special court and the Bombay High Court rejected her previous pleas, after which Bharadwaj filed an appeal in the Supreme Court, which was denied as well.

Even though the Bombay HC has approved the default bail plea of the lawyer and social activist Sudha Bharadwaj, she would not be able to walk out of the Byculla Jail before December 8, until she is told all the conditions of her bail and given due approval by the court. Meanwhile, the other accused in the jail are challenging the court's order of dismissing their default pleas in its September 2019 order, and are seeking bail on grounds that the chargesheet was not filed before the magistrate court who could have committed the matter to the sessions court.

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