RAO NEEDN’T SURRENDER TILL NOVEMBER 18, SAYS HC

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Tuesday said poet Varavara Rao, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case who is on interim bail, need not surrender before the Taloja prison authorities until November 18 and adjourned the hearing on a plea filed by him to next month.

Rao, 82, had been granted interim bail for six months on medical grounds by the HC on February 22 this year. He was scheduled to surrender and return to judicial custody on September 5.

However, Rao filed an application last month through his lawyer R Sathyanarayanan and senior counsel Anand Grover, seeking extension of the bail period. He also sought HC permission to stay in his hometown of Hyderabad while out on bail.

However, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the probe agency in the case, opposed Rao’s plea for extension of medical bail and shifting to Hyderabad, saying the octogenarian poet-activist’s medical reports do not indicate that he suffers from any serious ailment.