Supreme Court Seeks NIA Response on Bail Plea of Activist Shoma Sen Citing Health Issues

New Delhi, August 23, 2023: The Supreme Court has directed the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to respond to a plea filed by activist Shoma Sen, a defendant in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, seeking interim bail due to her deteriorating health. Sen (64), currently incarcerated at Byculla jail, was arrested in June 2018 for her alleged involvement in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence.

A bench of justices Aniruddha Bose and SVN Bhatti issued a notice on Sen’s application and instructed the NIA to submit its response by October 4, the next scheduled hearing. Senior advocate Anand Grover, representing Sen, emphasized her ailments, stating, “She is suffering from multiple ailments… Others who have got bail, their case is egregious. She is inside for over five years and there is no sight of trial beginning in the next five years.”

Sen had appealed to the Supreme Court after the Bombay High Court rejected her bail plea on January 17. The High Court had permitted her to approach the trial court again for bail. The NIA, in an affidavit filed on Tuesday, detailed Sen’s alleged involvement in the conspiracy. The agency claimed that she possessed Naxal material, engaged in unlawful activities of CPI(Maoist), and deleted incriminating material from her electronic devices on the instructions of co-accused and senior members of CPI(Maoist).

The Supreme Court’s attention to Sen’s plea highlights concerns over the intersection of health and legal proceedings, shedding light on the complexity of balancing individual rights with legal procedures.

The case pertains to alleged inflammatory speeches delivered at the Elgar Parishad conclave in 2017, which police asserted triggered violence near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial.