MUMBAI (UCAN): A special court of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the federal anti-terror agency of India, has set March 2 to announce the result of the bail application of 84-year-old Jesuit Father Stan Swamy, five months after his arrest and detention on charges of sedition (Sunday Examiner, January 31).
“We are happy that finally the court has fixed a date for announcing its order on the bail application,” said Jesuit Father A. Santhanam, a lawyer based in Tamil Nadu state, who is following the case.
Rights activists are concerned that bail for Father Swamy, who’s health has been frail, has been delayed for political reasons. He has been denied several times since his arrest on 8 October 2020 in Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand state, and detained in a jail in Mumbai (Bombay), the capital of Maharashtra state.
Rights activists are concerned that bail for Father Swamy, who’s health has been frail, has been delayed for political reasons. He has been denied several times since his arrest on 8 October 2020 in Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand state, and detained in a jail in Mumbai (Bombay), the capital of Maharashtra state.
Father Swamy applied for regular bail on 26 November 2020 after his first bail application on health grounds at the same court was turned down on 23 October 2020, close to a fortnight after his arrest.
In the latest development, Father Swamy’s counsel completed his arguments on February 12 requesting the court to grant the elderly priest bail.
However, the case was postponed to February 16 after the NIA sought more time to submit the case diary and opposed his release on the plea that the probe was still underway. The court concluded the hearing after the NIA submitted the case diary, but postponed its verdict.
“The elderly priest is already unwell and is unable to discharge his daily chores without help from others. We want to provide him with better health care,” Father Santhanam said.
“Generally, we don’t see courts taking so much time in deciding a bail application after completing the hearing,” Father Santhanam said on February 18.
“The elderly priest is already unwell and is unable to discharge his daily chores without help from others. We want to provide him with better health care,” Father Santhanam said.
Father Swamy is among 16 accused over violence that occurred in Bhima Koregaon, Maharashtra state on 1 January 2018, in which one person was killed and several others injured.
The accused are charged under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), making it almost impossible to gain bail, unlike in other cases.
Father Swamy’s lawyers also visited the NIA office in Mumbai on February 13 with an instruction from the special court for a cloned copy of the priest’s laptop and hard drive, Father Santhanam said.
“But we did not get the cloned copy of the laptop or hard drive. The NIA did not inform the court about not giving it during the February 12 hearing,” he said.
Father Swamy approached the court for a cloned copy of his laptop and hard drive after a United States-based digital lab found that incriminating evidence had been planted in the computer of Rona Wilson, another who is accused in the same case.
Father Swamy suspects incriminating documents may have been planted in his laptop.
Rights activists who support Father Swamy and others accused in the sedition case say those arrested are facing severe charges for their known criticism of the federal government run by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
