Bhima Koregaon: Bombay HC rejects Sudha Bharadwaj’s plea seeking bail on medical grounds

Special NIA Court had earlier rejected her bail on medical grounds, noting that prison authorities will continue providing her medical aid for her chronic ailments

Photo courtesy: Twitter
Photo courtesy: Twitter
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NH Web Desk

The Bombay High Court on Friday rejected Sudha Bharadwaj's writ petition seeking bail on medical grounds and challenging an order passed by a Special NIA Court rejecting her bail on medical grounds. Court noted that prison authorities will continue providing her medical aid for her chronic ailments and rejected her plea.

Division bench of Justice RD Dhanuka and Justice VG Bisht was hearing the writ petition filed by the activist and lawyer, who suffers from several comorbidities. Her bail application states that due to her age and pre-existing medical conditions like diabetes, hypertension and a history of pulmonary tuberculosis, Bharadwaj is at a high risk of contracting coronavirus in prison, and that this infection in her present medical condition would be life threatening.

Notably, a medical report submitted by jail authorities on July 21 states that Bharadwaj suffers from ischemic disease among other ailments, which leads to reduced supply of blood in the body. However, after a bench headed by Justice AA sayed sought a fresh medical report of Bharadwaj from the State on August 17, a report was submitted on August 21, exactly a month after the first report and there was no mention in the said report of ischemic disease.

Bharadwaj's counsel Ragini Ahuja contended that the two medical reports are contradictory to each other. However, court concluded that there is no divergence in the two medical reports and rejected her bail.

The 58-year-old Bharadwaj, who is booked for various offences under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act has been accused of inciting caste based violence that took place on the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon. She is currently lodged in Byculla women's prison where positive cases of COVID-19 have already come.


Bharadwaj was arrested on August 28, 2018 from her house at Faridabad and lodged at Yerwada jail in Pune before being moved to Byculla jail. She moved the High Court after her bail plea was rejected by Special Judge DE Kothalikar in an order dated May 29, 2020.

NIA had opposed her plea. NIA's affidavit states: "The appellant accused Sudha Bhardwaj under the garb of current situation on the account global pandemic COVID-19, is trying to take an undue benefit of the aforesaid situation in seeking bail on the grounds mentioned in her application."

The affidavit also states that Bharadwaj, who is the Vice President of IAPL (Indian Association of People Lawyers) along with other co-accused, is working for CPI (Maoist), a banned organisation. Moreover, the affidavit states that NIA's investigation has revealed that IAPL is a frontal organisation for CPI (Maoist).

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