Jesuit priest and tribal rights activist Stan Swamy, arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, has approached the Bombay High Court for bail on health grounds. Swamy (83), in his appeal filed in the HC on Monday, has challenged an order passed by a sessions court here last month refusing him bail.
The jailed activist is seeking bail citing his old age and on the ground that he is suffering from multiple ailments. The sessions court, while refusing bail to Swamy, had noted that factors like old age and sickness will not go in favour of the accused considering that there was a prima facie case against him for hatching a “conspiracy to overthrow the government”.
Swamy’s appeal in the high court will come up for hearing in due course. In his petition, Swamy has said he apprehends contracting COVID-19 as over 40 inmates of the Taloja jail in Navi Mumbai (where he is lodged) have tested positive for the infection.
Swamy was arrested from his house in Ranchi on October 8, 2020. The case relates to alleged inflammatory speeches delivered at the ‘Elgar Parishad’ conclave, held at Shaniwarwada in Pune on December 31, 2017, which the police claimed triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon- Bhima war memorial located on the city’s outskirts.
The Pune Police claimed the conclave was backed by people having links with Maoists. The NIA later took over the probe into the case in which over a dozen activists and academicians have been named as accused.
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