Binayak Sen released from jail

Mangalore Today / PTI

Raipur, April 18:  Civil rights activist Dr Binayak Sen has been released from a jail in Raipur today.

The Chhattisgarh court has asked Binayak to appear for all hearings; he cannot leave the county and was asked to deposit his passport with the authorities.

 

 

He was released on Rs. 50,000 bail bond and Rs. 50,000 personal bond.

Sen’s release came after the Supreme Court granted him bail last week, striking down charges of sedition levelled against him by the Chhattisgarh government.

He had been accused of colluding with Naxalites and sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of sedition.

The court had observed that there was no evidence against Sen and that no case of sedition was made out. At best, it said, he could be called a sympathizer but nothing beyond that. It left it to the satisfaction of the trial court concerned to impose conditions for his release on bail.

Sen, who is a vice-president of the People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL), was accused of colluding with Naxals to establish a network to fight the state. He was charged with sedition and was convicted and sentenced along with Naxal ideologue Narayan Sanyal and Kolkata businessman Piyush Guha, to life imprisonment by a Chhattisgarh trial court.

The Chhattisgarh High Court had rejected his bail plea on February 10 and the 61-year-old had challenged that order in the Supreme Court.