The Bombay High Court is hearing the bail plea of 66-year-old Konnath Muralidharan, an alleged Communist Party of India (Maoist) sympathiser, who has been in Yerwada jail for the past three years after the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) arrested him with ‘objectionable material’ and a Pune court rejected his bail twice.
On May 8, 2015, Mr. Muralidharan was arrested at 6 a.m. after the ATS got information that he and his aide, Chirag Palli, were operating out of their alleged hideout at Talegaon in Pune.
The ATS had recovered handwritten notes and printed literature that talked about Operation Green Hunt, the Central Military Commission and other literature related to CPI (Maoists).
The first information report states that Mr. Muralidharan introduced himself as Thomas Joesph. It also said he took on names such as Sunny alias Rajendra Goppi Vijayan alias Raghavan alias Ajith Kannampillai alias Kannakaran. Mr. Palli introduced himself as James Mathew.
Statements of some witnesses were recorded and the ATS had seized laptops, CPUs, printers, three pen drives, 10 mobile handsets, five SIM cards, two dongles and books in Malayalam from the accused.
The ATS also recovered a fake PAN card in the name of Thomas Joseph with Mr. Muralidharan’s photograph on it, and also found that Mr. Palli had a fake Aadhaar number.
Mr. Muralidharan was charged under Sections 419 (punishment for cheating by personation), (forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), and 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 10 (penalty for being member of an unlawful association, etc), 13 (punishment for unlawful activities), 20 (punishment for being member of terrorist gang or organisation), 38 (offence relating to membership of a terrorist organisation) and 39 (offence relating to support given to a terrorist organisation) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.
Charge sheet in Pune
On October 14, 2015, the ATS filed a charge sheet in the case before the sessions court in Pune.
On September 9, 2016, Mr. Muralidharan, who suffered heart ailments prior to his arrest and also had a mild heart attack while in prison, moved a bail application, which was rejected by the sessions court.
Judge R.N. Sardesai of the sessions court in Pune had held that Mr. Muralidharan is a member of a banned group and that the police had seized “books, handwritten Malayalam literature, fake PAN and Aadhaar cards” from his rented apartment.
The court also held if he was released on bail, he would abscond.
False implication
Mr. Muralidharan’s bail application filed before HC through his advocates Sudeep Pasbola and Susan Abraham states that he has been falsely implicated, and that there is no evidence to prosecute him under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.
The application states merely because he has an assumed name does not mean he is involved in criminal activities and the matter will be heard by a single-judge bench of Justice Anuja Prabhudessai on November 29.
