Year after first arrests, bail hearings of Elgar Parishad accused to resume in Pune

Mahesh Raut, Rona Wilson, Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen and Sudhir Dhawale were among the first five activists arrested on June 6, 2018. The order to restart bail hearings was issued on Tuesday.

PUNE A year since the first five activists have been arrested in the Elgar Parishad case, bail hearings are slated to resume.

Elgar Parishad was held at Shaniwarwada in Pune on December 31, 2017 and is said to have incited the Bhima Koregaon violence which occurred on January 1, 2018. (HT FILE PHOTO)

Mahesh Raut, Rona Wilson, Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen and Sudhir Dhawale were among the first five activists arrested on June 6, 2018. The order to restart bail hearings was issued on Tuesday.

Judge Ravindra Pande, who took over charge from Judge Kishore Vadane, issued an order that bail arguments will begin afresh in his court. However, this time the accused may have access to the documents seized from their houses and electronic devices.

In the court of Additional Sessions Judge Kishore Vadane, who is now a district judge, the bail arguments on the bail application filed by VV Rao and Rona Wilson had concluded on May 10.

During the earlier hearings, the accused had submitted an application under Section 207 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) seeking cloned copies of the documents seized from their possession during various police raids.

As the accused did not get access to the documents they were seeking, another application under Section 207 of CrPC was submitted on May 13.

Judge Vadane decided to put his decision on the bail applications on hold until the application seeking documents was disposed off. He then issued an order that accepted the accused activists’ demand for cloned copies and outlined the procedure to do so. The assistant court superintendent was to appoint a forensic expert and produce cloned copies to be handed to all the accused.

Assistant commissioner of police, Shivaji Pawar, who is investigating the case had said that the process will take a long time.

On Tuesday, Judge Pande called for a report from the assistant court superintendent’s office on the issue. The official asked for at least 15 days’ time to complete the process. Judge Pande then set June 27 as the date when the documents will have to be handed over to the accused.

While Shoma Sen and Sudha Bhardwaj were present in the court, other accused including Dhawale, Raut, Gadling, Wilson, VV Rao, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferriera, were not present in the court.