Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case: HC grants bail to activist Mahesh Raut
Mumbai (PTI): The Bombay High Court on Thursday granted bail to activist Mahesh Raut, arrested in the Elgar Parishad Maoist links case.
A division bench of Justices A S Gadkari and Sharmila Deshmukh allowed Raut's plea seeking bail on merits.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) sought the court to stay its order for two weeks so that it could file an appeal in the Supreme Court. The bench then stayed operation of its order for a week.
Raut was arrested in June 2018 and is presently in judicial custody.
He had moved HC in 2022 seeking bail and challenging the order passed by the special NIA court refusing him bail.
Raut in his plea had said his custody was unwarranted and that it was against Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.
The NIA had opposed the plea saying it was not justifiable to grant an accused, booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) to seek bail on constitutional grounds.
As many as 16 activists have been arrested in the case of which five are currently out on bail.
Scholar-activist Anand Teltumbde, lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira have been granted regular bail, while poet Varavara Rao is currently out on bail on health grounds.
Another accused, activist Gautam Navlakha, is under house arrest as per the direction of the Supreme Court.
The case pertains to the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017, which according to the Pune police was funded by Maoists.
The inflammatory speeches made there led to violence at the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial in Pune the next day, the police had alleged.
The case was later probed by the NIA.
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Udupi: Two men from Belthangady awarded life imprisonment for attempt to murder a woman in 2022
Udupi: Two men from Belthangady have been sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in Udupi for attempting to murder a woman in Manchikumeri in 2022.
The sentenced men, Mithun and Nagesh Poojary, are learned to have attempted to murder Sumathi, wife of Ramanath Rai, a resident of Manchikumeri, who had a Nandini Milk Parlour at Tiger Circle, Manipal.
On February 18, 2022, Sumathi was reportedly alone at home when, at around 7 pm, Mithun, learned to be her nephew, and his friend Poojary came to the house. As Sumathi opened the door, the duo barged in and tried to strangulate her with an intention of murdering her. Sumathi reportedly lost consciousness under the attack.
The men packed her body in a sack and were then putting the sack into a suitcase to carry the body out, when they noticed that Rai and neighbours had arrived. They are learned to have opened the door when Rai knocked the door and then tried to escape. They were, however, caught by the neighbours and handed over to the police.
Further, Sumathi was found by the group in an unconscious state inside the suitcase in the house. She was rushed to the Manipal Hospital and learned to have recovered after a week of medical treatment.
A case had been registered at the Manipal Police Station.
The Udupi Principal District and Sessions Court judge Kiran S Gangannavar, who heard the case, has declared both Mithun and Poojary guilty in the case. He has awarded them life imprisonment, fined them Rs 20,000 each and, under Column 325, sentenced them to rigorous imprisonment of 5 years and fined them Rs 5,000 each.
Judge Gangannavar has directed that, of the fine, Rs 45,000 be handed to the attack victim Sumathi as relief.
Jayarama Shetty represented the government as Public Prosecutor.
