Bhima Koregaon: Bombay High Court permits Varavara Rao to travel to Hyderabad for cataract surgery

The Bombay High Court Monday granted permission to Bhima Koregaon accused Varavara Rao to travel from Mumbai to Hyderabad for a week to undergo cataract surgery..The permission would be for surgery for one eye, a division bench of Justices AS Gadkari and SC Chandak said. Once Rao is back from his first surgery, he can approach the trial court with the dates of surgery of his other eye for permission to travel again, the bench clarified.For the first surgery, the Court also ordered that Rao travel within a week from the date the Court's order of Monday is uploaded on the website..Rao was arrested in 2018 in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence and remained in judicial custody till March 2021 when he was granted temporary bail of 6 months on medical grounds by the Bombay High Court.The Supreme Court in August 2022 granted him bail on medical grounds. One of the conditions in the bail order was that Rao cannot leave the jurisdiction of the special court under National Investigation Agency (NIA) Act in Mumbai without express permission of court.In his present plea, Rao argued that the trial has not commenced yet and his vision was deteriorating due to cataract. Advocates R Satyanarayanan and Neeraj said that the surgery and post-operative care in Mumbai was expensive, whereas it was free in state of Telangana for a pension holder. He added that Rao's granddaughter was also an ophthalmologist in Hyderabad which was an added advantage.He therefore sought permission to remain in Hyderabad for ten days..Advocate Sandesh Patil appearing for the National Investigation Agency, opposed the request for ten days. His argument was that cataract surgery patients are discharged the same day, and Rao should be allowed to stay in Hyderabad at the most for 3 days..The Court concluded that the requirement of surgery was not being disputed by NIA.It, therefore, deemed fit to waive the condition of staying withing the special court jurisdiction for a week.Accordingly, the application was allowed for surgery of one eye.The Court also granted permission to approach the special trial court with application for surgery of second eye later.