Elgar Parishad case: Bombay HC grants bail to Teltumbde

The Bombay high court on Friday granted bail to Elgar Parishad case accused Anand Teltumbde, who has been in prison since April 2020, as it observed that the material placed on record by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) does not appear to suggest his involvement in any terror act.

The Bombay high court on Friday granted bail to Elgar Parishad case accused Anand Teltumbde, who has been in prison since April 2020, as it observed that the material placed on record by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) does not appear to suggest his involvement in any terror act.

The Bombay high court on Friday granted bail to Elgar Parishad case accused Anand Teltumbde, who has been in prison since April 2020.

The court, however, stayed its order for a week so that the NIA can approach the Supreme Court. This means that Teltumbde will not be able to walk out of jail till then.

The case pertains to alleged inflammatory speeches made at an Elgar Parishad conclave in Pune on December 31, 2017 which, police claimed, triggered violence the next day near Koregaon-Bhima war memorial on the outskirts of the western Maharashtra city. One person was killed in the incident.

Teltumbde was arrested in April 2020 over alleged links with banned terrorist outfit, the Communist Party of India (Maoist), according to the NIA. The 73-year-old is facing charges under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and is lodged in Taloja prison in Navi Mumbai.

A division bench of justices AS Gadkari and Milind Jadhav provided Teltumbde the relief after noting that prima facie, the material placed by the NIA does not suggest Teltumbde’s involvement in any terror acts.

“We are of the prima facie opinion that on the basis of material placed before us by

NIA, which has been looked into by us, it cannot be concluded that Appellant has indulged in a terrorist act,” the bench said in its 56-page order, seen by HT.

“The material placed on record prima facie does not inspire confidence to bring the Appellant’s act as alleged for the punishment prescribed under Sections 16 (punishment for terrorist act), 18 (conspiracy) and 20 (punishment for being member of terrorist gang or organisation) of the UAPA Act,” it added.

The court granted the accused bail on furnishing a personal bond of ₹one lakh and one or two sureties in the same amount.

Teltumbde is the third accused in the case to be granted bail by the high court after co-accused Varavara Rao and Sudha Bharadwaj.

He had approached the high court after the special NIA court rejected his bail plea last year.

In his plea, Teltumbde’s counsel and senior advocate Mihir Desai said his client has been named as an accused only because he is the brother of Milind Teltumbde, who was an alleged Maoist leader and was killed in an encounter in Gadchiroli in December last year, Desai claimed.

Desai also said that purported documents against his client were recovered from the computer of co-accused Rona Wilson and its veracity could not be proved as there was no signature to suggest the documents belonged to him (Teltumbde) or were gathered by him.

Appearing for the NIA, special public prosecutor Sandesh Patil said Teltumbde had helped his brother before on certain occasions. Patel furnished documents to show the accused had been actively promoting CPI(M) ideology in urban areas and was also getting literature from the conferences he attended abroad and shared them with his brother.

Patil alleged that Teltumbde was heading a frontal organisation of CPI(M) and thus, his role cannot not be overlooked in the Bhima Koregaon case.

Referring to NIA’s submission on letter recovered by it from laptop of one of the co-accused, claiming that ‘Anand T’ had received Rs. 90, 000 from co-accused Surendra (Gadling) through ‘Milind (Teltumbde)’, the bench said the agency’s claim “would require further corroboration and evidence” and “prima facie it appears that the same has not been brought on record.”

The bench noted that the said document was unsigned and thus, “at this prima facie stage”, it cannot presume that Teltumbde received the said amount as argued by the NIA. “We are afraid to state that we cannot agree with the NIA’s contention,” it said.

The bench referred to another document submitted by the NIA which referred to Teltumbde as a central committee member of CPI(Maoist). It also noted that the witness who gave a statement in the case has not specifically seen the appellant having met his brother and his statement was “hearsay evidence”.

It also noted that the NIA’s claim that the appellant was involved in activities to further the ideology of the banned group to overthrow the state needs further corroboration.

“Considering the fact that Appellant has no criminal antecedents and he has been behind bars for more than two-and-half-years, in our opinion, a case for grant of bail has been made out,” the bench said.