Read Time: 05 minutes

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday allowed Sudha Bharadwaj’s default bail plea in the Bhima Koregaon case. She will be presented before the Special NIA court on December 8, which would further finalise her release on bail.

Previously, a Division Bench of Justice S S Shinde and Justice N J Jamadar had concluded the hearing and reserved the verdict in Bharadwaj’s default plea on August 4. Thereafter, the Bench heard a plea by eight other accused, the hearing of which was concluded and orders were reserved for September 1.

However, the Bench on Wednesday has rejected the default bail plea of eight other co-accused in the case including Sudhir Dhawale, Mahesh Raut, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Rona Wilson, Shoma Sen, Surendra Gadling and Varavara Rao.

Previously, the Bench was informed by the Counsel for petitioner Yug Chaudhry that, “Judge K.D. Vadane passed two significant orders, one on November 26, 2018, granting an extension of 180 days for filing the chargesheet as opposed to 90 days stipulated under the Code of Criminal Procedure; and the second on December 21, 2019, when he received the chargesheet, took cognizance of it and issued processes.”

“Judge Vadne was not a special judge and therefore had no business dealing with or even touching the present case,” asserted the Counsel.

It is also known that, Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh in beginning had pointed out that the Supreme Court was going to consider this issue on July 8, 2021 and hence the Court may consider this aspect before proceeding to hear the application. However, the Court proceeded.

The Right to Information replies received from the High Court showed Mr. Vadne was an Additional Judge and not a Special Judge. He had further added that the UAPA neither has Special Courts nor Special Judges under its provisions.

Despite there being other NIA judges at the Sessions Court in Pune, this matter was taken up by Mr. Wadne, he had alleged.

“Both the directions could have been given only by an NIA judge. How did Mr. Wadne come into the picture?” he asked.

In order to verify the records relied upon by Chaudhry, the Court adjourned the hearing of the matter by two days to call for appropriate records from the High Court registry.