The Supreme Court has extended the stay imposed by the Bombay High Court on its order granting bail to Mahesh Raut, one of the accused in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence case till October 5.
The order was passed by the Bench of Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Bela M Trivedi on the National Investigation Agency’s appeal challenging the High Court’s bail order.
Earlier this month, the Bombay High Court had granted bail to Raut but had stayed its order for a week after the NIA sought time to file appeal before the Supreme Court.
The Apex Court has decided to hear the matter on October 5, however, adding that the stay on bail will continue till then.
Accused Raut has been in custody since 2018, when he was arrested.
The Bombay High court was approached by the accused after his bail plea was rejected in November 2021 by the NIA special court.
Raut in his plea mentioned that he is not involved and claimed himself as a forest rights activist and a former fellow of the prestigious Prime Minister’s Rural Development Programme.
As per the allegations by NIA, accused Raut was involved in recruiting young students to Communist Party of India (Maoist).
The bail was however granted to him by the High Court,because a co-accused has claimed that he handed over money to Raut, it would not make Raut a recipient of the same as there was nothing else to corroborate the claim.
There are about six people including Sudha Bharadwaj, Varavara Rao, Anand Teltumbde, Vernon Gonsalves, and Arun Ferreira who have got bail in the Bhima Korgaon case
Another accused, Gautam Navlakha, was placed under house arrest instead of being lodged in jail after a Supreme Court order to that effect.
Additional Solicitor General SV Raju and Advocate Kanu Agrawal appeared for NIA before the Supreme Court today.