MUMBAI: The special NIA court, which rejected 83-year-old Jesuit priest and activist Stan Swamy’s bail plea in the Elgar Parishad-Maoists links case on Monday, has held that prima facie he had hatched a “serious conspiracy” with banned CPI (Maoist) to create unrest in the country and to overthrow the government.
In his order, which was made available on Tuesday, Additional Sessions judge DE Kothalikar held that Swamy was found in possession of objectionable material and there was sufficient evidence to connect him to the activities of the banned organisation.
The material that the court referred to included around “140 emails between the applicant (Swamy) and his co-accused Shoma Sen and Rona Wilson,” the fact that Swamy and others he communicated with, was referred to as “comrades”, and that Swamy had received Rs 8 lakh from one comrade, Mohan, for the furtherance of Maoist activities.
“The material placed on record thus prima facie denote that the applicant was not only a member of banned organisation CPI (Maoist) but he was carrying out activities further in the objective of the organisation which is nothing but to overthrow the democracy of the nation,” the order read.
Swamy was arrested from Ranchi in October 2020 and has since been lodged at the Taloja Central Jail in Navi Mumbai. The bail plea was filed on merit as well as Swamy’s medical grounds.