[Bhima Koregaon] Bombay High Court rejects default bail plea of Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday rejected the plea filed by three accused Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves in the Bhima Koregaon case seeking review of the High Court's December 2021 judgment refusing them default bail. [P Varavara Rao & Ors. v. State of Maharashtra & Anr.].A Bench of Justices SS Shinde and NJ Jamadar stated that there was no factual error in the judgment as claimed by the accused.The bench held that the applications for bail listed in the review application had never been placed before the Court. “The case now sought to be urged was not at all argued, much less, pleaded before the Court. …we therefore find it diffcult to accede to the submission on behalf of the applicants that a factual error had crept in”, the Court ruled..Eight accused had been refused bail by the High Court on December 1, 2021 while another co-accused Sudha Bharadwaj had been granted bail.The High Court in its December 1 order, while demarcating Bharadwaj's plea from the other eight, had noted that Bharadwaj’s application for default bail was pending on the date the application for extension of time to file the chargesheet was made by the Pune Police.In the present plea filed through advocate R Satyanarayanan, the three accused Rao, Ferreira and Gonsalves sought correction of an alleged error in the December 2021 judgment and consequently, prayed that they be granted bail.They submitted in the plea that the review application arose on the account of a factual error in the judgment and if that error is not rectified, it will lead to "gross miscarriage of justice"..Advocate Sudeep Pasbola contended that the reason for granting bail to Bharadwaj was on the basis a common order which also included names of Gonsalves, Rao and Ferreira.He submitted that the statutory bail of all the accused first came to be rejected by Pune Sessions Court by a common order. The date of the arrest of the accused was common and hence they were all at par.He argued that the observations made against the accused if not rectified will violate their rights to seek bail subsequently..Advocate Sandesh Patil appearing for the National Investigation Agency, argued that the review petition is barred by law as the prayer sought alteration or review of the final judgment after due verification of records and hearing.He also claimed that the accused were trying to bring in a new case and blame the Court when their entire pleading in the application was defective and insufficient..The Bench opined that re-hearing on a point which was not at all urged, is impermissible in law, under the guise of review and concluded that no case for exercise of review jurisdiction was made out.As for the apprehension that observations in the judgment under review may operate to the prejudice of the applicants, the Court clarified that the observations were based on the case pleaded, documents placed and submissions canvassed before them while deciding the said application..[Read order]