The Supreme Court (on April 05) granted bail to former Nagpur University professor Shoma Sen, who is booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act 1967 (UAPA) for alleged Maoist links in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case.She was arrested on June 6, 2018, and has been under custody since then, awaiting trial. Today, the Bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Augustine George...
The Supreme Court (on April 05) granted bail to former Nagpur University professor Shoma Sen, who is booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act 1967 (UAPA) for alleged Maoist links in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case.
She was arrested on June 6, 2018, and has been under custody since then, awaiting trial. Today, the Bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Augustine George Masih held that the restriction for grant of bail as per Section 43D(5) of the UAPA would not apply in the case of Sen. The Bench also noted that Sen was a lady of advanced age with several ailments. Further, it took into account her prolonged incarceration, the delay in the commencement of trial and the nature of the accusations.
Notably, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), after being asked by the Court why her detention was necessary, told the Court on March 15 that her further custody was not required. This statement was also taken into account by the Court.
The Court directed that Sen shall not leave the State of Maharashtra without the permission of the Special Court and shall surrender her passport and furnish her address and mobile number to the investigating officer. She should also keep the location and GPS of her mobile phone active throughout and the device should be paired with the device of the investigating officer so that her location is known.
The Division Bench was hearing a petition challenging a January 2023 order of the Bombay High Court, by which it directed Sen to approach the special court trying her case, for bail.
Sixty-two-year-old Sen is the sixth out of the sixteen accused in the case to get bail. Sudha Bharadwaj got default bail(2021), while Anand Teltumbde(2022), Vernon Gonsalves & Arun Ferreira(2023) got bail on merits. Varavara Rao has been granted bail on medical grounds, and Gautam Navlakha has been shifted to house arrest due to health reasons by the Supreme Court. Although the Bombay High Court granted bail on merits to Navlakha and Mahesh Raut, these orders were stayed by the High Court itself, and the stay orders were extended by the Supreme Court. Another accused, Father Stan Swamy, passed away in custody in July 2021.
Submissions Put Forward By Sen Before The Top Court
Senior Advocate Anand Grover, who represented the arrested professor, emphasized that there is a lack of evidence connecting Sen to the case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, or establishing her purported links with the proscribed Communist Party of India (Maoist).
In particular, the senior counsel underlined the absence of any incriminating evidence on Sen's own electronic devices and questioned the reliability and probative value of unsigned documents recovered from co-accused persons.
Grover also referred to Sen's advanced age, ill health, and prolonged incarceration to strengthen Sen's plea for bail.
During the contentions, Grover also supported his case while relying upon the ratio in Vernon Gonsalves's judgment, which was handed out by a bench of Justices Bose and Sudhanshu Dhulia last year. In this case, co-accused Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira were granted bail by the Supreme Court after almost five years in custody. The court, other than taking into account the length of incarceration, also held that the seriousness of the allegations alone could not be a ground to deny bail and justify their continued detention.
Submissions Put Forward By National Investigation Agency Before The Top Court
During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj, representing the National Investigation Agency (NIA), challenged the maintainability of the embattled academician's bail application in the Supreme Court.
In this context, the NIA also supported the High Court's decision to remand the bail application to the special court as an additional chargesheet was filed. Following this, in the last hearing, the agency, when asked about the necessity of Sen's continued detention, admitted that they no longer require her custody.
Apart from this, ASG also emphatically rejected the Sen's argument that there was no material in the supplementary chargesheets that implicated her in the UAPA case. He submitted that there are materials that make it evident that Sen is a part of the frontal organization of these proscribed Maoist organizations.
Case Details: Shoma Kanti Sen v. State of Maharashtra & Anr. | Special Leave Petition (Criminal) No. 4999 of 2023
Citation : 2024 LiveLaw (SC) 280