After 3 years spent in jail, activist Sudha Bharadwaj will get Bail Today

The special court-ordered Ms Bharadwaj not to interact with the media about the case

New Delhi/ Mumbai: Lawyer-activist Sudha Bharadwaj is likely to get bail this evening after three years of imprisonment in the Koregaon-Bhima case. Ms Bharadwaj was arrested in 2018.

After several rejections of getting bail, Activist Ms Sudha will get bail. This comes a day after the SC rejected a petition by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), challenging the Bombay High Court order on her bail. "We see no reason to interfere with the high court order. Plea dismissed," a bench of Justices UU Lalit, SR Bhat, and Bela M Trivedi said, clearing her release.

Taking notes from her bail conditions, a special NIA court said that the 60-year-old activist will have to submit her passport and stay in Mumbai. The special court mentioned Ms Bharadwaj can't interact with the media on the case also she could be released on a provisional cash bail of  Rs 50,000.

The Bombay High Court on December 1 granted default bail to Ms Bharadwaj but the NIA court was asked to set the bail conditions.

The lawyer-activist Ms Sudha is the first among 16 activists and academicians arrested in the case to have been granted default bail.

Back in 2017, on December 31, a case was filed over alleged inflammatory speeches delivered at the Elgar Parishad conclave against Ms Sudha.

The lawyer was arrested on August 28, 2018. Later, she was placed under house arrest. Afterwards, she was then taken into custody on October 27, 2018.

The speeches, police had claimed, triggered violence near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial located on the city's outskirts the next day. The conclave, it was alleged, was backed by Maoists. Anti-terror agency NIA had later taken over the case from the Pune Police.

Associated with the trade union movement in Chhattisgarh for more than 25 years, Sudha Bharadwaj is the general secretary of the Chhattisgarh unit of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), and a member of Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS).