Bhima Koregaon: Bombay High Court Permits Accused Poet Varavara Rao To Travel To Hyderabad For Cataract Surgery

The Bombay High Court has granted octogenarian Telugu poet Varavara Rao permission to travel to Hyderabad for seven days to undergo cataract surgery in one of his eyes.

Justices AS Gadkari and Shyam Chandak further asked Rao to seek permission afresh from the trial court to undergo surgery for the other eye.

Rao had approached High Court in November 2022 against the Special NIA’s court order refusing permission.

The poet is facing allegations under the UAPA over alleged Maoist links. The Supreme Court on August 10 2022 had granted him permanent medical bail but constrained him to stay within the limits of the city of Greater Mumbai. The court however, granted him liberty to approach the concerned NIA court for permission to go to Hyderabad.

Thereafter he approached the Special Court for permission to travel to Hyderabad and stay for a period of 3 months. The special Court rejected his request. Hence the present criminal application.

The application argued by Advocate R Sathyanarayanan contended that Rao was 83 years old and needed to get cataract surgery for which the appropriate place is Hyderabad. According to the plea, the special Court gave two reasons for rejecting the bail – i) he can get the treatment in Mumbai and ii) arguments for discharge are going on in the main case.

The application contended that if Rao does not undergo surgery, he may suffer serious repercussions including impairment of vision. He can get the treatment in Hyderabad for free as he is the pensioner of the State Government of Telangana.

The application further contended that his family members are doctors including his grand-daughter who is an ophthalmologist and can provide better care to him.

It was further stated that Rao’s experience with government hospitals in Mumbai has been terrible and the private hospitals are too costly, therefore he cannot afford cataract operation in Mumbai and has to get it done in Hyderabad.

His counsel sought permission for twenty days, ten for each eye. However, Advocate Sandesh Patil for NIA objected and said he should be granted only three days.

The court then granted Rao seven days from the date of uploading of the order to travel to Hyderabad and get his surgery done. As for his other eye the court said Rao may seek permission from the trial court.

All the other bail permissions would remain intact. Therefore, Rao would be required to submit details of his surgery to the NIA.

Background

According to the application, till October 10, 2022, only one of the discharge applications was heard and there are 5 more discharge applications yet to be heard. After that the prosecution will also be heard. Further, the charge sheet runs into about 20,000 pages and there are several witness statements. This whole exercise will be very time consuming, the plea states.

Not only that, Rao has not filed a discharge application and has no role to play, the application states and contended that rejecting permission to travel to Hyderabad on this ground would be sheer abuse of process.

Case no. – APL/1274/2022

Case Title – Dr. P. Varavara Rao v. National Investigation Agency and Anr.