A special court in Mumbai rejected the bail plea of activist Anand Teltumbde, 70, on Monday, arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case. The Special Judge D E Kothalikar, presiding over matters probed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), refused bail to Teltumbde accepting the prosecution's argument that there was sufficient material against the accused. A copy of the detailed order of the court is awaited.
Teltumbde, arrested by the NIA in April last year, had in January 2021 filed a bail application stating that the theory of the prosecution that he was waging a war or attempting to wage a war or abetting others to wage a war or incite the public is wrong. Teltumbde is presently lodged in the Taloja prison in Navi Mumbai.
NIA counsel Prakash Shetty opposed the bail application arguing that there was sufficient material in the form of oral evidence and documents to prove Teltumbde's complicity in the case. Shetty had claimed that Teltumbde was an active member of CPI (Maoist) and propagated its activities.
In his bail application, Teltumbde, however, claimed the NIA had not produced any material to show that he is a member of the CPI (Maoist).
Even in July 2020, the special National Investigation Agency court had already rejected the bail application of Anand Teltumbde. The social activist then sought the bail on grounds that NIA did not file any charge sheet within the 90-day timeframe. However, the special court rejected the bail plea by stating that they cannot delve into ifs and buts. The court also extended the deadline.
Teltumbde is an engineering graduate and an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and was teaching at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Kharagpur and at the Goa Institute of Management until his arrest in April, 2020.