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Synopsis

The Supreme Court today issued notice in the bail pleas filed by Jyoti Jagtap and Shoma Sen, accused in the Bhima Koregaon case.

A division bench comprising Justices Aniruddha Bose and Sudhanshu Dhulia has also sought response from the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the State of Maharashtra.

In October last year, a Division Bench of Justice A.S Gadkari and Justice Milind Jadhav of the Bombay High Court, had rejected the bail plea of Jyoti Jagtap, who had filed an appeal against the Special Court’s (NIA Court) order, rejecting her bail application. The Special Court rejected her bail application in February, 2022.

Jyoti Jagtap was alleged to be a member of a cultural group "Kabil Kala Manch" which organised Elgar Parishad in December 2017, which led to violence among groups. 

The order rejecting the bail of Jagtap stated that,

“The documents referred to herein above clearly highlights the active role of the Appellant in so far as organizing the Elgar Parishad event but more importantly it is the association of Appellant with the prominent members of CPI(M) which is a designated terrorist organization which cannot be lost sight of".

The division bench said that Elgar Parishad was a smaller conspiracy in the larger design and conspiracy of CPI(M). The order in this regard had stated, “The Elgar Parishad event is thus a smaller conspiracy within the larger design and conspiracy of CPI(M) to further its agenda. From one of the letters it is seen that there is a congratulatory message given for the success of the Elgar Parishad event and a direction is issued to exploit the death of the youth in the violence on the following day. It is also seen that CPI(M) has chalked out a detailed strategy for furtherance of its objective to overthrow the democratically elected government of our country and the Appellant and other co-accused are prima facie actively strategising the same”. 

In Shoma Sen case, a Division Bench of Justice SS Shinde and Justice NJ Jamadar had rejected the default bail plea of eight other co-accused in the case including Sen while allowing Sudha Bharadwaj’s default bail plea.

Sen was arrested by the Pune Police in 2018. In her plea before the Bombay High Court, Sen had stated that in August 2018, the investigating officer requested an extension of time to file charges against her and three other accused, which was granted by a Pune Sessions Judge on September 2, 2018. Later, on September 27, 2018, the four accused applied for default bail, which was dismissed by the Special NIA Judge on June 26, 2022.