The Bombay High Court said on Tuesday that 81-year-old poet Varavara Rao will continue to be in a private hospital for his treatment till the matter is heard on December 21.
Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh told a Division Bench of Justices S.S. Shinde and M.S. Karnik that Mr. Rao had been in a private hospital and now, as per medical records, he could be discharged.
The court said it would want to hear the pleas at length filed by senior advocates Indira Jaisingh and Anand Grover on behalf of Mr. Rao’s wife, Hemalatha, seeking bail on medical grounds. Mr. Rao was shifted from Taloja Central jail to Nanavati hospital on November 18 for medical examination and treatment.
Mr. Singh said a plea for temporary medical bail was filed in the Sessions Court, which had denied bail. He stated that a new plea that raised additional grounds with different facts should be raised before the Sessions Court first.
The Bench referred to the Arnab Goswami judgment passed by the Supreme Court on granting him bail and said, “Now we have a judgment wherein it has been clarified that the HC can grant bail in writ. Earlier there was a grey area. Now the law has been made clear.”
Mr. Grover, representing Ms. Hemalatha, said Mr. Rao had 24 cases against him at one point but he had never gone absconding. He said they have applied for clone copies of the records but they have not be given the same.
Mr. Grover said that if Mr. Rao was sent back to jail now, there was no medical infrastructure there to aid him.
The court said it would hear the matter virtually on December 21 and added that Mr. Rao’s medical treatment would continue and the State government would continue to bear the cost.