Mumbai: High Court allows Varavara Rao's counsel to visit him for bail formalities

Varavara Rao. File pic

The Bombay High Court on Thursday permitted a counsel of poet-activist Varavara Rao, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, to visit him in the Nanavati Hospital here to obtain his signatures for completion of his bail formalities.

Rao, 82, was on Monday granted interim bail for six months by the high court on medical grounds in the case being probed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

The court had asked Rao to deposit a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and two solvent sureties of the like amount, and at that time refused to grant request of his lawyer Anand Grover for permission to the activist''s counsels to meet him.

On Thursday, a bench of Justices S S Shinde and Manish Pitale allowed advocate R Satyanarayan to meet Rao to get his signatures on an application seeking permission from the HC to modify his bail conditions.

On Wednesday, Grover approached the HC seeking that Rao be permitted to deposit temporary cash bonds before the NIA court here instead of the solvent sureties. Grover had said that the procedure for obtaining sureties was time-taking.

He had sought permission to deposit the cash bonds for a period of two months and complete the solvent sureties formalities in such period. On Thursday, he urged the HC to allow advocate Satyanarayan to meet Rao to get his signatures on the application for permission to deposit the cash bonds instead.

The HC granted permission for Satyanarayan to meet the activist. It also directed Rao's counsels to mention on Friday the application for modifying the condition for sureties. Rao was arrested in August 2018. He has been in custody, awaiting trial since then.

He was admitted to the Nanavati Hospital by the Maharashtra government in November last year following HC''s intervention. On Monday, while granting interim bail to Rao, the HC imposed several conditions on his release, including a direction to him to remain in the city, within the jurisdiction of the NIA court here.

Rao will be discharged from the hospital and released on bail if his health condition is stable and once the bail formalities are completed. The case pertains to alleged inflammatory speeches made at the ''Elgar Parishad'' conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017, which, the police claimed, triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial located on the outskirts of the western Maharashtra city.

The police have claimed the conclave was organised by people with alleged Maoist links.

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