Court rejects NIA plea seeking bail revocation of 4 Elgaar Parishad accused

Mumbai: A special court on Saturday rejected the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) plea to cancel the bail granted to four human rights defenders accused in the Elgaar Parishad case, observing that the agency had failed to establish that their participation in a January gathering at the Mumbai Press Club violated any bail condition.

The NIA had sought cancellation of bail granted to lawyers Sudha Bharadwaj and Arun Ferreira, Telugu poet Varavara Rao and activist Vernon Gonsalves. The agency alleged that the four had breached a condition restricting them from contacting or communicating with other accused in the case, Maktoob Media reported.

The four had spent several years in prison before securing bail. Bharadwaj was granted bail by the Bombay High Court in December 2021, while Rao was initially granted interim bail on medical grounds in February 2021, a relief later confirmed by the Supreme Court in August 2022. Ferreira and Gonsalves were granted bail by the Supreme Court in July 2023. The trial in the case has not yet commenced.

The NIA alleged that the four attended a gathering at the terrace of the Mumbai Press Club on January 19, 2026, where they purportedly discussed ways to promote the ideology of the banned CPI (Maoist) and advance what the agency described as the “Urban Naxal” movement. The agency argued that their participation amounted to a violation of their bail conditions and posed a threat to national security.

Opposing the plea, Bharadwaj’s counsel argued that she had not discussed or participated in any illegal activity at the gathering. The lawyer said Bharadwaj and the other accused had endured prolonged incarceration and undertrial proceedings together and had provided each other emotional and moral support during that period.

The defence further submitted that the accused had shared the grief of losing fellow accused Father Stan Swamy, who died during the proceedings, while some of them had also experienced personal losses during their incarceration. Bharadwaj, the lawyer, noted that she had lost her father while she was in prison.

In such circumstances, the defence argued, it was natural for the accused to communicate when they encountered one another in court or elsewhere, and treating such interaction as a violation would disregard their shared experiences and basic human ties.

Rejecting the NIA’s request, special NIA judge Chakor Baviskar observed that the restriction on communication between co-accused was intended to prevent them from engaging in activities connected with the alleged offences, rather than to prohibit ordinary human interaction.

The court noted that co-accused persons frequently meet inside and outside courtrooms during hearings and may discuss their cases as well as their personal well-being. Such conversations, by themselves, could not be treated as a breach of bail conditions, the judge held.

The court further observed that merely changing the location of a meeting did not establish that the accused had violated the conditions imposed on their bail.