Rao's surrender date extended

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Friday extended till February 5, the date of surrender for poet Varavara Rao, an accused in the Elgar Parishad- Maoist links case who is currently on medical bail, before Taloja prison authorities in Maharashtra. A bench of Justices SS Shinde and NR Borkar dismissed the National Investigating Agency's (NIA) request for extending such date of surrender only by a week.

The bench said in view of the rising cases of coronavirus across the state, it would not be wise to send the 83-year-old poet-activist back to prison.

Rao, who was lodged in the Taloja prison in Navi Mumbai as an undertrial, was granted temporary medical bail for six months in February 2021 by another bench of the HC that was led by Justice Shinde.

He was admitted to the private Nanavati Hospital in Mumbai at the time for treatment of multiple ailments. His date of surrender was scheduled for September 5, 2021, but Rao filed a new application through advocate R Sathyanarayanan and senior counsel Anand Grover seeking an extension of medical bail.

The date of Rao's surrender has been extended since then by the HC on several accounts, including further time sought by the NIA, which is investigating the case, for filing replies to the new application and getting the octogenarian medically examined

again, among others.