The Bombay High Court on Tuesday granted bail and suspended the life sentence awarded to right-wing extremist Sachin Andure in the Dr Narendra Dabholkar murder case.
Sachin Andure is a prime convict in the case. Dabholkar was shot dead in August 2013.
A division bench of Justice Sarang Kotwal and Justice Ranjitsinha Bhonsale pronounced the order.
Co-convict Sharad Kalaskar was granted bail by a co-ordinate bench led by Justice Ajay Gadkari in April this year, Live Law reported.
Andure, who is also facing trial in connection with the killing of activist Govind Pansare, can walk out of jail now as he has secured bail in both the cases.
Dabholkar, 67, the founder of the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti, an anti-superstition organisation, was shot dead by two motorcycle-borne assailants while on a morning walk in Pune on August 20, 2013.
Initially, the case was probed by the local police, but following a petition filed in the HC by his daughter Mukta Dabholkar, the investigation was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 2014.
The prosecution had claimed that Andure was one of the shooters.
On May 10, 2024, a sessions court convicted Andure and Sharad Kalaskar for Dabholkar's murder, sentencing them to life in prison.
However, they were acquitted of charges under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Arms Act.
The court had also acquitted Virendra Singh Tawde, Sanjiv Punalekar and Vikram Bhave, citing insufficient evidence.
Andure had filed an appeal in the HC challenging the conviction and, in an interim application, sought bail and suspension of his life sentence.
The HC allowed this application on Tuesday.
Dabholkar's daughter Mukta had also filed an appeal before the HC challenging the acquittals in the case and the exclusion of UAPA charges against Andure and Kalaskar.
She alleged in her plea that the murder was part of a larger conspiracy by right-wing extremists.
Dabholkar's murder was the first in a chain of similar killings of three other rationalists and activists -- Govind Pansare in Kolhapur in February 2015, Kannada-language scholar MM Kalburgi in Dharwad in August 2015, and journalist Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru in September 2017.
(With inputs from PTI)