Elgar Parishad-Maoist case: HC grants bail to Rona Wilson, Sudhir Dhawale

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday granted bail to researcher Rona Wilson and activist Sudhir Dhawale, arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, noting that they were in jail since 2018 and the trial was yet to start. A division bench of Justices A S Gadkari and Kamal Khata said the two had spent more than six years in jail as under-trial prisoners.

"They are in jail since 2018. Even the charges in the case are yet to be framed. The prosecution has cited over 300 witnesses, and thus there is no possibility of the trial to conclude in the near future," the court said. A trial starts after the charges are framed.

The NIA, the prosecution agency, did not seek a stay to the HC order.

Defence lawyers Mihir Desai and Sudeep Pasbola had argued that the two accused were incarcerated since their arrest in the case.

While granting relief, the high court said it was not dealing with the merits of the case at this stage. Wilson and Dhawale were directed to submit a surety of Rs one lakh each, and appear before the special NIA court for the trial hearing.

They shall surrender their passports and not leave the city until the trial is over, the HC said.

Rona Wilson was arrested in June 2018 from his home in Delhi. He was described by the probe agencies as one of the top brass of urban Maoists.

Dhawale was accused of being an active member of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). Apart from Dhawale and Wilson, 14 other activists were arrested in the case. Eight of them -- Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Anand Teltumbde, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Shoma Sen, Gautam Navlakha and Mahesh Raut -- have been granted bail till now. Mahesh Raut remained in jail as the appeal filed by the NIA against his bail is pending before the Supreme Court. But on Tuesday the special NIA court granted him interim bail for 18 days to enable him appear for an LLB exam. Stan Swamy, one of the accused, died in 2021 while in prison. The case pertains to provocative speeches allegedly delivered at the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017, triggering violence at Koregaon-Bhima in Pune district the next day.

The Pune police had claimed the conclave was backed by the Maoists.

The NIA later took over the probe.