A special court in Mumbai on Friday reserved orders on interim medical bail pleas filed by poet Varavara Rao and Shoma Sen, accused in the Bhima Koregaon violence case.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) opposed the bail pleas, stating that a High Powered Committee (HPC), constituted to release prisoners, exempted those charged under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act to be released on bail. It said both were given medical treatment at the Byculla and Taloja jails and they need not be released.

Advocate Sharif Shaikh, appearing for Ms Sen, said the HPC had mentioned that inmates who are senior citizens and have co-morbidities should be granted bail. He contented that 61-year-old Ms Sen, because of her age and medical conditions, was at a higher risk of contracting Coronavirus.

Advocate Satyanarayan, for Mr. Rao said, his client, who was arrested on August 31, 2018 and had been in jail since then, had pre-existing health issues such as piles, prostate enlargement, coronary artery disease, oedema, hypertension, acidity, sinus/migraine.

Meanwhile, an interim bail application of another accused, 67-year-old Gautam Navlakha, and the NIA’s application seeking his custody as he surrendered before it in Delhi and not in Mumbai and that they needed his custody to question him on the material found in the case have been adjourned to July 10.

The trio are among the 11 persons booked by the Pune Police before the NIA took up the investigation recently. They have been booked for allegedly delivering inflammatory speeches at the Elgar Parishad conclave held at Shaniwar Wada in Pune on December 31, 2017, triggering violence at the Bhima-Koregaon war memorial the next day.