Bombay High Court Grants Bail to Activist Mahesh Raut After Five Years in Pre-Trial Custody

Mahesh Raut, an activist who has spent more than five years in pre-trial custody and is an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, was granted bail by the Bombay High Court on Thursday. The court noted that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had relied on hearsay evidence that had not been independently verified.

According to a division bench of Justices A.S. Gadkari and Sharmila Deshmukh, Raut, 33, can most likely be described as a member of the CPI (Maoist), but no overt or covert terrorist act has been linked to him, and the NIA has not produced any evidence indicating that he was involved in recruiting people for the outlawed group.

Sandesh Patil, a special public prosecutor, requested a two-week stay of the order while speaking on behalf of the NIA. A week's stay was granted by the bench.

In judicial custody at the Taloja prison outside of Mumbai, Raut was taken into custody in June 2018.

The court stated, "In the present case, the incriminating material does not in any way prima-facie lead to draw a conclusion that the appellant (Raut) has engaged in or committed a 'terrorist act' as contemplated under Section 15 of the UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act)."

It was highlighted that the only charges that would trigger the UAPA's Sections 13 and 38 were that Raut was, at most, a member of the CPI (Maoist). It said that 7 and 10 years in prison were the maximum penalties allowed under these clauses.

The court stated, "In our view, there is no material on file to indicate that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the allegations against the appellant under Sections 16, 17, 18, 20 and 39 of the UAPA are presumptively true." These sections address recruitment, criminal penalties for terrorist acts, criminal penalties for conspiring to perform terrorist acts, criminal penalties for belonging to a terrorist group, and criminal penalties for supporting a terrorist organisation.

Raut was qualified for bail, according to the court, because he had been held without charge for trial for more than five years and had no prior criminal history.

The court ordered Raut to provide a surety of Rs 1 lakh as bail and allowed him to post cash bail for an eight-week period.