Bhima Koregaon case: Professor Hany Babu withdraws bail plea from Supreme Court

Professor Hany Babu, an accused in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence case, withdrew his bail plea from the Supreme Court today citing a change in circumstances [Hany Babu vs National Investigation Agency and anr]..A Bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal was slated to hear the matter today when Babu's counsel informed the Court that the bail plea was being withdrawn.Babu's counsel added they would move the High Court afresh for bail.The Court then allowed the withdrawal of the bail plea..Recently, Umar Khalid, an accused in the Delhi riots case, had also withdrawn a bail plea before the same Bench of the top court after citing the same ground - change of circumstances..Professor Hany Babu was arrested in July 2020 on charges of being a member of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and being involved in conspiracy to attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi.The Bombay High Court rejected his bail plea in September 2023, leading to the appeal before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court had sought the National Investigation Agency's (NIA) response to the regular bail plea filed by the Delhi University professor in January this year. .Babu had earlier argued before the High Court that the letters cited by NIA to implicate him in the Bhima Koregaon case did not incriminate him.The NIA had claimed that a letter found on Babu’s computer mentioned a conspiracy against Prime Minister Modi. Babu, however, maintained that the letter was not written by him or addressed to him. He added that the letter did not mention of any role by him in the alleged conspiracy.He had also argued that the trial in the case was yet to commence and would take time to conclude as the NIA planned to examine over 200 witnesses for evidence, which ran into more than 30,000 pages.The High Court, however, noted that the offences alleged were serious and that evidence showed that the professor "was an expert in setting up appointments and developing code structure which was vital for secret communication."The High Court proceeded to reject his bail plea, while also noting that Babu appeared to be involved in "mass mobilisation, party building and analysis of the cities in the context of a larger objective of the CPI (Maoist) a terrorist organisation."This led to the appeal before the Supreme Court, which has now been withdrawn.