Bhima Koregaon accused Varavara Rao moves Supreme Court for bail

Telugu poet Varavara Rao, who is an accused in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence, has approached the Supreme Court seeking permanent bail on medical grounds. .Rao has challenged an April 13 judgment of the Bombay High Court which had rejected his plea for bail. The appeal was mentioned by Senior Advocate Anand Grover on Thursday before a vacation bench of Justices Surya Kant and JB Pardiwala of the top court. "My lords he is 82 years old. Please hear on reopening," said Grover.The Bench agreed to list the matter on July 11..The Bombay High Court bench of SB Shukre and GA Sanap besides rejecting Rao's plea for bail had also dismissed his application to stay in Telangana during the duration of trial.The Court had, however, extended for three more months an earlier order granting him temporary bail on medical grounds."On going through the record, we have not come across an iota of material to conclude that all the expert Medical Officers have examined the accused have acted under the influence of NIA. ...Seriousness and severity of the crime would remain till such time the accused is pronounced not guilty of the crime alleged to have been committed. Role attributed to the accused is serious. He is one of the main conspirators. Therefore, in our opinion, on the medical ground the accused is not entitled to get bail," the High Court had said.Rao has challenged this order now. The Bombay High Court in May this year had also rejected the plea filed by Rao and two other accused in the Bhima Koregaon case seeking review of the High Court's December 2021 judgment refusing them default bail. A Bench of Justices SS Shinde and NJ Jamadar had stated that there was no factual error in the judgment as claimed by the accused. The bench held that the applications for bail listed in the review application had never been placed before the Court.Eight accused had been refused bail by the High Court on December 1, 2021 while another co-accused Sudha Bharadwaj had been granted bail.The High Court in its December 1 order, while demarcating Bharadwaj's plea from the other eight, had noted that Bharadwaj’s application for default bail was pending on the date the application for extension of time to file the chargesheet was made by the Pune Police.