Varavara Rao To Be Moved To Nanavati Hospital After Bombay High Court Order

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday asked for activist 81-year-old activist and poet Varavara Rao to be moved to Mumbai’s Nanavati Hospital noting that he was almost on his death bed. 

The 81-year-old, who is an accused in the Elgar Parishad case, had been lodged in the Taloja jail since August 2018, had contracted Covid-19 earlier this year. Rao also has other health complications. 

Live Law quoted the Bombay High Court as saying, “Ultimately the man is on almost death bed. He needs some treatment. Can the State say no no we will treat him in Taloja?”  

The bench of Justices SS Shinde and Madhav Jamdar made the remarks while hearing a plea by Rao’s wife Pendyala Hemlatha for his release from prison on medical grounds. 

The court asked the Maharashtra government to move Rao to the hospital and allowed for Rao’s family to see him. 

The Live Law report quoted senior lawyer Indira Jaising, who argued for his release, as saying, “He (Varavara Rao) is completely bed-ridden, in diapers, no medical attendant and has a catheter. Catheter was not changed for 3 months, as there was no one to change it.” 

In a thread of tweets from court, Live Law reported Jaising as saying that Rao was being taken care of by co-accused Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira because there was no one else to take care of him. 

Jaising also cited post-Covid complications that can be fatal. 

Rao was admitted to Nanavati hospital earlier this year because of his health complications. 

The Bombay High Court, had last week denied a bail on medical grounds and asked for a health check up, which had happened online. 

On October 29, the Supreme Court had also refused to grant him bail when his wife approached the court on the issue. 

Read the entire article on Live Law here and follow their tweet thread on today’s hearing here.