Bhima Koregaon: Bombay HC seeks NIA response to Varavara Rao's plea for leave to shift to Hyderabad

Activist-poet P Varavara Rao, an accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, has moved the Bombay High Court seeking permission to permanently shift his residence from Mumbai to Hyderabad [P Varavara Rao v. National Investigation Agency & Ors.].

A Division Bench of Justices AS Gadkari and Kamal Khata has sought the National Investigation Agency's (NIA) response to the plea and posted the matter for hearing after two weeks.

The Bhima Koregaon case concerns allegations of Maoist links and a broader conspiracy behind violence that occurred near Pune on January 1, 2018. Sixteen persons were arrested in the case; nine initially by Pune Police in 2018 and seven later by the NIA after it took over the probe.​ Of the 16, Jesuit priest and activist Father Stan Swamy died in custody in 2021.

All the accused have secured bail from the Supreme Court and Bombay High Court. 

Rao was among those arrested in 2018 and had been in judicial custody till March 2021 when he was granted temporary bail for 6 months on medical grounds by the Bombay High Court. Later, the Supreme Court in August 2022 granted him bail on medical grounds. 

One of the conditions in the bail order was that Rao cannot leave the jurisdiction of the special court NIA court in Mumbai without express permission of the court.

Rao has submitted that his continued stay in Mumbai has become difficult because of age, illness and rising expenses. Rao's petition states that he and his 76-year-old wife need the support of family members based in Hyderabad, where he owns a house and has access to relatives. He also apprised the Court that his daughter and granddaughter are also medical professionals.

He has told the Court that staying in Mumbai has become financially burdensome, with monthly expenses of more than ₹77,000 against a pension of about ₹50,000.

On March 16, 2026, the NIA court rejected Rao's plea. The special court observed that the permission earlier granted by the Supreme Court in 2022 to travel to Hyderabad was temporary and did not allow him to leave Mumbai permanently.

The octogenarian has now filed an appeal challenging this order through his lawyer, Advocate R Sathyanarayanan.Rao's appeal argues that the restriction was not intended to bar a permanent move to Hyderabad, especially given his medical condition and repeated difficulties in securing accommodation in Mumbai.