Court allows Bharadwaj lodged in Pune jail to attend father’s funeral

Sudha Bharadwaj, activist and lawyer arrested in the Elgar Parishad case, was granted permission by the Bombay High Court to attend the funeral of her father. Her father Dr Raghunath Bharadwaj passed away on August 6.

“On humanitarian grounds, the court granted her permission to attend her father’s funeral in presence of police escort. They had asked for interim bail. But the court granted permission to travel with a police escort,” said assistant commissioner of police Shivaji Pawar of Pune police, who is investigating the Elgar Parishad case. The decision was made by a Bombay HC bench of justice Sarang Kotwal.

The lawyer is currently in judicial custody of additional sessions judge Ravindra N Pande at the Yerawada Central Jail. The HC has asked her to return to jail on August 20.

Bharadwaj was granted permission to travel to Bengaluru on August 17 and return to Pune on August 20, according to the police. The mode of travel will be provided and funded by the state machinery, according to the lawyer involved in the case.

Bharadwaj had recently told a Pune court that she does not have any immediate family members, besides her daughter, who visit her. 

A civil rights activist, Bharadwaj, a lawyer by profession has been a visiting professor at the National Law University, Delhi and providing legal assistance in Chhattisgarh. She was arrested from her house in Faridabad in August 2018 on charges of having connection with the Communist Party of India (Maoist), an organisation banned under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (Uapa).