Bhima-Koregaon case: Sudha Bharadwaj granted default bail by Bombay HC – The Hindu

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday granted default bail to human rights lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj but rejected the plea for default bail of eight accused in the Bhima-Koregaon caste violence case.

A Division Bench of justices S.S. Shinde and N.J. Jamadar said Ms. Bharadwaj was entitled to default bail and directed a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court to impose bail conditions on her on December 8.

The other eight accused are — Surendra Gadling, Varavara Rao, Sudhir Dhawale, Shoma Sen, Rona Wilson, Mahesh Raut, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira. The court had reserved Ms. Bharadwaj’s judgment on August 4 and that of others on September 1.

Ms. Bharadwaj’s plea points out that judge K.D. Wadane passed two significant orders, one on November 26, 2018, granting an extension of 180 days for filing the charge sheet as opposed to 90 days as per the Code of Criminal Procedure. The other order was passed on December 21, 2019, when Mr. Wadane received the charge sheet, took cognisance of it and issued processes. He showed both the orders signatures of Mr. Wadane read ‘special judge’ in one order and ‘special Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) judge’ in the other order.

Advocate Yug Chaudhry, representing Ms. Bharadwaj had contended that as per Right to Information replies received from the High Court it showed Mr. Wadane was an additional judge and not a special judge. He went on to say that the UAPA did not have special courts, nor did it have special judges.

The other eight are challenging the order passed by Mr. Wadane on September 5, 2019 rejecting their default bail pleas. They are now seeking bail on the grounds that the charge sheet was not filed before magistrate court who could have committed the matter to sessions court.

Advocate Sudeep Pasbola appearing for the accused had previously argued that the order passed by the sessions court judge could not be sustained as the State Government had already constituted a special NIA court and under the NIA Act the agency ought to have approached the Magistrate Court as the charges included UAPA.