Supreme Court grants bail to 2 Elgar Parishad accused

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, July 28

Noting that seriousness of allegations alone can’t be the basis for denying bail to an accused, the Supreme Court on Friday granted bail to activists Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira who have been in jail for five years in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.

“Considering the fact that almost five years have elapsed, we are satisfied they (Gonsalves and Ferreira) have made out a case for bail,” a Bench of Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia said.

“The allegations are serious, no doubt, but for that reason alone, bail cannot be denied to them. We have referred to materials available against them at this stage. This material cannot justify continued detention of appellants pending final outcome,” said Justice Bose while pronouncing the verdict. Lodged in Navi Mumbai’s Taloja jail, the two accused were likely to be released next week after legal formalities.The order came on their petition challenging the December 1, 2021 order of the Bombay High Court that granted default bail to co-accused advocate Sudha Bharadwaj, but denied the same relief to eight other accused.While enlarging the duo on bail, the top court directed them to use one mobile phone each, inform the National Investigation Agency (NIA) about their addresses and surrender their passports to the probe agency. The mobile phones they would use should be charged and active round-the-clock. “They shall keep the location status of their mobile phones active 24 hours a day and their phone shall be paired with NIA’s IO to enable him to identify their exact location at any time,” it ordered.