The Supreme Court on Wednesday adjourned to November 30, the bail plea of Jyoti Jagtap in the Bhima Koregaon violence case.
The Bench of Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Sanjay Kumar said that it needed time to determine whether Jagtap’s bail application would ‘fit the formula’ used in granting bail to activists Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira in the same case.
The activist had moved the Apex Court against the October 17, 2022 order of the Bombay High Court, which had refused to grant her bail on the grounds that the case made out by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) against her was ‘prima facie true’ and that she was part of a ‘larger conspiracy’ hatched by CPI (Maoist).
Jagtap was arrested in September 2020 for her alleged involvement in the 2018 caste-based violence that broke out at Bhima Koregaon area in Pune on January 1, 2020. She was further accused of having alleged links with the proscribed outfit, Communist Party of India (Maoists).
Earlier on July 28, the top court of the country had granted bail to activists Gonsalves and Ferreira in the same case, noting that they have been in custody for five years.
On May 4, the Apex Court had sought responses from the Maharashtra government and the NIA on Jagtap’s bail plea.
The High Court had noted that Jagtap was an active member of group Kabir Kala Manch (KKM), which during its stage play at the ‘Elgar Parishad’ conclave on December 31, 2017 in Pune, had raised ‘aggressive’ and ‘highly provocative’ slogans.
It further took in view the accusations made by NIA against Jagtap for ‘conspiring, attempting, advocating and abetting’ the commission of a terrorist act as prima facie true.
NIA had alleged that KKM was a front organisation of the banned terror outfit Communist Party of India (Maoist).