MUMBAI (UCAN): The Bombay High Court has, for an eighth time, refused to hear a plea seeking to clear the late Jesuit Father Stan Swamy from an anti-terror case that includes a plot to kill prime minister, Narendra Modi. Justice Revati Mohite-Dere recused herself from hearing the plea on September 20.
The seven-year-old Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case was filed against 16 leading activists in the country.
Petitioner, Jesuit Father Frazer Mascarenhas, whom the Jesuits appointed as a delegate to file the case in December 2021 after Father Swamy’s death in custody on 5 July 2021 [Sunday Examiner, 11 July 2021], said “this was the eighth bench in the high court refusing to hear the case.”
Father Mascarenhas, who is based in Mumbai [Bombay], the capital of Maharashtra state, said that no high court bench is willing to hear the case “because it is clearly in our favour.”
He said, “We still do not know why eight benches refused to hear this case. It is a clear case of justice being denied to Father Swamy.” The judges fear “retribution from the government,” Father Mascarenhas said on September 23.
Father Swamy was arrested on 8 October 2020, at his residence in Ranchi in eastern Jharkhand state. He was accused of offenses such as sedition, having links with the outlawed Maoist group, and being part of a conspiracy to kill Modi.
We still do not know why eight benches refused to hear this case. It is a clear case of justice being denied to Father Swamy.
Father Mascarenhas
He died in a Mumbai hospital while in custody after being denied bail on medical grounds despite suffering from multiple age-related ailments.
Rights activists say Father Swamy was arrested because he opposed the policies of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] government in his state and marshaled tribal people to oppose them.
A recent report by Massachusetts-based Arsenal Consulting, a digital forensics firm, disclosed that Father Swamy was arrested based on evidence planted on his computer’s hard drive through hacking.
He, along with 15 others, was accused of instigating mob violence in Bhima Koregaon in Maharashtra on 1 January 2018, which left one dead and several others hurt.
All the accused in the Bhima Koregaon case are leading academics, writers and human rights activists like Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves, Sudha Bharadwaj, Anand Teltumbde, Gautam Navlakha, and poet Varavara Rao.
The legal term “recuse” means to excuse oneself from a case because of a potential conflict of interest or lack of impartiality. The judges have rescued themselves from hearing the case on seven earlier occasions.
A lawyer following the case remarked that those judges did not explicitly express potential conflicts of interest in the case.
