Bombay High Court allows Stan Swamy's extended stay at private hospital

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Thursday allowed a request made by the lawyer and extended Jesuit priest and activist Stan Swamy's stay in a private hospital in Mumbai till June 18, as he has been tested Covid positive.

Swamy, 84, who has been arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, was on May 28 shifted from the Taloja prison in neighbouring Navi Mumbai to the Holy Family Hospital here after he filed a petition, seeking interim bail on medical grounds. After being shifted to the private hospital, he tested positive for the Coronavirus infection.

On Thursday, his counsel Mihir Desai told a the division bench of Justices S.S. Shinde and N.J. Jamadar that Swamy had tested positive for Covid and hence, his stay at the private hospital should be extended.

Upon Desai's request the bench said Swamy shall remain admitted at the private hospital till June 18, and posted the petition for hearing on June 17. The court also directed the hospital to submit in a sealed envelope medical reports of Swamy by the next date of hearing.

The Elgar Parishad case relates to alleged inflammatory speeches delivered at a conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017, which the police claimed triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial on the Maharashtra city's outskirts. The Pune Police had claimed the conclave was backed by Maoists. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) later took over the probe into the case.

The police arrested Swamy in October 2020, and he has been in jail since then.

Last month speaking with judges via video conferencing from jail, Swamy had refused to get admitted to any hospital and had requested the judges to consider releasing him on interim bail considering his ill-health but later he agreed to get admitted to a private hospital.