MUMBAI, Dec. 5 -- The Bombay high court on Thursday granted bail to former Delhi University professor Hany Babu Musaliyarveettil Tharayil in the 2018 Elgar Parishad case, citing his prolonged pre-trial incarceration of five years and seven months. Babu will be released after depositing bail bond in the lieu of Rs.1 lakh along with sureties. Babu, a former associate professor in the department of English of Delhi University, was arrested on April 14, 2020, and had remained in custody since on charges of being a member of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and involvement in an alleged conspiracy linked to the Elgar Parishad event on December 31, 2017. In February 2022, a trial court in Maharashtra rejected Babu's plea seeking bail. The Bombay high court upheld the order in September 2022. In June 2024, Babu moved the high court challenging orders, arguing that he had been detained for an unconstitutionally long period without trial. Babu's counsel Yug Mohit Chaudhary argued that he has no prior criminal record, and that his discharge plea has remained pending for over three years without a response from the prosecution. Opposing the plea, additional solicitor general Anil C Singh and advocate Chintan Shah contended that the length of custody alone should not justify bail. They argued that Babu had "not yet undergone 50% of the sentence" applicable if convicted, and that parity could not be claimed since other co-accused granted bail had spent over six years in jail. However, the division bench of justices AS Gadkari and Ranjitsinha R Bhonsale disagreed. Noting that co-accused Sudhir Dhawale and Rona Wilson had been granted bail on the ground of prolonged pre-trial detention, the court held that Babu was similarly entitled to parity. It also recorded that more than nine accused in the case have been released on bail. Relying on the Supreme Court's judgment in Legal Aid Committee (Representing Undertrial Prisoners) vs Union of India, the bench observed that undertrials cannot be kept in custody indefinitely. Once it becomes evident that a timely trial is impossible and the accused has already spent a significant period in jail, "courts are ordinarily obligated to enlarge them on bail", it said. "Prolonged incarceration without trial infringes the fundamental right guaranteed under Article 21," the judges noted, adding that the unlikelihood of the trial concluding in the near future "necessitates a consequential release"....