The Supreme Court has granted bail to Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira, who were charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence. The court considered that they had been in custody for over five years and emphasised that serious allegations alone cannot be the sole reason for denying bail.
Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira have been held in Mumbai’s Taloja jail since 2018 and had approached the Supreme Court for bail after their bail pleas were rejected by the Bombay High Court. They argued that the High Court granted bail to their co-accused, Sudha Bharadwaj, but denied it to them.
Despite granting bail, the Supreme Court imposed certain conditions on Gonsalves and Ferreira. They are not allowed to leave Maharashtra without the trial court’s permission, and they must surrender their passports to the National Investigation Agency’s investigating officer. Additionally, there are restrictions on their place of residence and the use of mobile phones, among other conditions.
The Bhima Koregaon case is related to a conference held in Pune’s Shaniwar Wada to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Koregaon-Bhima, which led to subsequent violence resulting in the death of a young man and injuries to several others.
In August 2018, activists Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira, along with Sudha Bharadwaj, P Vara Vara Rao, and Gautam Navlakha, were arrested and charged under the UAPA. Initially, they were placed under house arrest based on the Supreme Court’s directions.
The Maharashtra government extended the tenure of the Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry, which was set up in February 2018 to investigate the cause of the violence. The commission, headed by retired High Court judge Justice J N Patel, and with former chief secretary Sumit Mallick as the second member, is responsible for probing the events surrounding the Bhima Koregaon violence.
Who is Vernon Gonsalves?
Vernon Gonsalves is an extreme Left activist and academician, and an accused in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence. He was arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. He is a Mangalorean Catholic. He was a teaching faculty at several colleges in Mumbai such as Ruparel College, HR College of Commerce and Economics, and Akbar Peerbhoy College of Commerce and Economics. Gonsalves was arrested on August 28, 2018 by the Pune Police along with activists Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira and Gautam Navlakha, and lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj. The Supreme Court of India ordered them to be under house arrest. In September 2018, Historian Romila Thapar and other activists approached the Supreme Court of India to demand an independent probe into the high-handedness of the Pune police in the arrests of the five activists, including Vernon. This petition was dismissed by the three judge bench with Justice Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud dissenting (Justice Chandrachud is current CJI of India).
Earlier, Vernon Gonsalves was accused of being a Central Committee members of CPI (Maoist) and convicted under the Arms Act, Explosives Act and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). He was charged in around 20 cases.
Who is Arun Ferreira?
Arun Ferreira was arrested for the first time under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and imprisoned in 2007. He was released on 4 January 2012. In August 2018, he was again arrested for connections to organising “Elgaar Parishad”, an event that marks the 200th year of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon on January 1, 2018. The event was violent and the police had uncovered a letter that included plans to assassinate the Prime Minister. Arun Ferreira also got bail along with Vernon Gonsalve on same grounds and same conditions.