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Bombay HC grants bail to former DU professor Hany Babu in Elgar case after five years

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Thursday granted bail to former Delhi University professor Hany Babu, more than five years after his arrest in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case. A division bench of Justices A S Gadkari and Ranjitsinha Bhosale allowed the bail plea of Babu. The detailed order was not available yet. The HC refused the request of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to stay the bail for enabling it to appeal before the Supreme Court. Hany Babu had sought bail primarily on the ground of prolonged incarceration without trial. His counsel, Yug Mohit Chaudhary, had also argued that the charges were yet to be framed and their discharge application was still pending before the trial court. The NIA has accused Hany Babu of being a co-conspirator in propagating Maoist activities and ideology on the instructions of leaders of the banned CPI (Maoist) organisation. He was arrested in July 2020 in the case and was lodged at the Taloja prison in Navi Mumbai. The case relates to alleged inflammatory speeches delivered at the Elgar Parishad conclave, held at Shaniwarwada in Pune on December 31, 2017, which police claimed triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon Bhima war memorial located on the city's outskirts. One person was killed and several others were injured in the violence. The case, in which more than a dozen activists and academicians had been named accused, was initially probed by the Pune police and later taken over by the NIA.