Bombay High Court reserves order in plea for temporary bail by Bhima Koregaon accused Surendra Gadling to attend mother's funeral rites

The Bombay High Court on Monday reserved its order in a plea filed by Bhima Koregaon accused Surendra Gadling seeking temporary bail to attend his mother's funeral..Gadling had sought temporary bail from the Special Court on the ground that his mother had expired in August 2020 and he was required to join his family members to perform the last rituals.However, the application had been rejected by the Special Judge DE Kothalikar of Mumbai Court in September 2020.In view of this, Gadling had moved the High Court assailing the order and sought urgent temporary bail..Senior Advocate Indira Jaising argued that when Gadling had moved for bail before the Special Judge, the NIA had sought for time to respond to the petition. They had filed their reply on August 28, 2020, when Gadling's mother had expired on August 15, 2020. She argued that the delay in hearing of the application was because of NIA and not Gadling as was projected by NIA. .She relied upon an order of the High Court which permitted co-accused, civil rights activist and lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj to visit her home to attend her late father’s 13th day rituals and other final rights in Bangalore for two days..To buttress her point that Gadling was not a flight risk, Jaising argued that Gadling did not try to escape when his house was raided for investigation. She submitted that Gadling was arrested a month after that raid from his house, and hence, he was not a flight risk..Advocate Sandesh Patil appearing for NIA opposed the plea by relying upon the affidavit filed by NIA. .Reason for seeking temporary bail does not survive: NIA opposes Surendra Gadling's temporary bail plea in Bombay High Court .He argued that the reason for temporary bail did not exist, as the unfortunate death had already occurred a year back. He added that the the reason for seeking interim bail - to conduct rites, was something that anyone from Gadling's family could do. .On technical grounds, Patil argued that the appeal filed under Section 21 of the NIA Act was filed after a year and it was filed on new facts which could not be considered. .After hearing both counsels briefly, a Bench of Justices SS Shinde and NJ Jamadar reserved the application for orders.