Supreme Court grants bail to Binayak Sen
The Supreme Court has granted bail to rights activist Binayak Sen, who has been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by a Chhattisgarh trial court for sedition and helping Naxalites to set up a network to fight the State.
The apex court on Friday said it was giving no reason for granting bail to 61-year-old Sen and left it to the satisfaction of the trial court concerned to impose the conditions for his release on bail.
A bench comprising Justices H S Bedi and C K Prasad passed the order on the petition moved by Sen challenging the order of Chhattisgarh High Court denying him bail.
During the hearing, the bench observed that "we are a democratic country. He may be a sympathiser (of Naxalites) but it did not make him guilty of sedition. "He is a sympathiser. Nothing beyond that," the bench further said, perusing the affidavit filed by the Chhattisgarh government opposing his bail.
Senior advocate Ram Jethmalani, appearing for Sen, submitted in his affidavit that the state has been unable to point out misconduct on his part.
The bench also said that all the statements made by the state has no relevance.
It said other documents and evidences produced by the state government including that he met co-accused Piyush Guha 30 times in a jail and pamphlets and documents relating to Maoist activities were recovered from his possession did not mean that he was involved in seditious activities.
However, senior advocate U U Lalit, appearing for the state government, said that no case is made out for the bail and submitted that the activities of Sen have to be seen in a broader perspective.
When the bench asked him whether his activities in any way connect to the offence of sedition, Lalit said, "My case has been accepted by the trial court and the apex court has only to consider whether he can be granted bail or not."
When the court asked him if there were any documents backing the charge of sedition, Lalit said Sen visited the jail and exchanged documents with Guha and others.
However, this submission did not satisfy the bench, which said, "Visitors are screened and searched by the jail staff when they go and meet the inmates. "The jailors are there to oversee all these things. So the question of passing letters or documents doesn't arise."
"The worst can be said that he was found in possession of general documents (relating to Naxal activities) but how can it be said that such possession would attract the charge of sedition. How can you lay the charge of sedition?" the bench asked. While granting bail, the bench said, "We are concerned with the implementation of the judgement as even no case of sedition is made out."
AP agrees to CBI probe into Azad's killing
The Andhra Pradesh govt told the Supreme Court that it would be agreeable to a CBI inquiry into the killing of top Naxalite leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad and journalist Hemchandra Pandey by state police in a gunbattle in July last year.
A bench of justices Aftab Alam and R M Lodha on Friday, while taking on record the submission made by senior counsel Harish Salve on behalf of the state government, adjourned the matter till Monday for passing appropriate orders.
The bench adjourned the matter after Salve said that he needed certain instructions from the state government and would talk to the Union Home Ministry for allowing the CBI to take up the investigation into the matter.
The Centre and the state had on 31st March opposed in the apex court the demand for a judicial probe into the matter.
The state government had in its affidavit refuted the allegation that the police had killed them in a fake encounter and submitted that they lost their lives in an exchange of fire between them and the security forces.
The governments' response came on apex court notice to them on 14th January on separate petitions filed by social activist Swami Agnivesh and Pandey's 30-year-old widow Babita seeking a judicial probe into the case.
The bench had expressed displeasure over the incident and had remarked "we cannot allow the republic killing its own children."
Azad, a senior member of banned CPI (Maoist) Central Committee, and Pandey, who was dubbed by the police as a Maoist, were killed in an alleged fake encounter on the intervening night of 1st to 2nd July 2010, in Adilabad district of Andhra Pradesh.
Seeking a judicial probe into the killings, the petition alleged the post-mortem reports of both the persons and a fact-finding exercise carried out by rights groups clearly indicated that the encounter was not genuine.
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