The Bombay High Court on Thursday granted bail to former Delhi University associate professor Hany Babu, who spent over five years in custody in the Elgar Parishad–Maoist links case.
A division bench of Justices A S Gadkari and Ranjitsinha Bhosale allowed Babu’s plea seeking release, though the detailed judgment had not been made public at the time of reporting. The court also declined a request from the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to stay the bail order so it could move the Supreme Court.
Babu had approached the court arguing prolonged incarceration without trial. His counsel, advocate Yug Mohit Chaudhary, pointed out that charges had still not been framed and a discharge petition remained pending before the trial court despite the passage of several years.
The NIA opposed the bail, alleging that Babu was a co-conspirator who helped propagate Maoist ideology and activities on instructions from leaders of the banned CPI (Maoist). He was arrested in July 2020 and has been lodged at the Taloja Central Prison in Navi Mumbai since then.
The criminal case stems from speeches delivered at the Elgar Parishad event held at Shaniwarwada in Pune on December 31, 2017, which authorities claim led to caste violence the next day near the Koregaon Bhima war memorial. The clash left one person dead and several injured.
More than a dozen activists, lawyers, and academicians have been named accused in the case, which was initially investigated by Pune
