SC adjourns Binayak Sen’s bail hearing to Friday
11 Apr 2011
The Supreme Court today adjourned hearing of the bail plea of human rights activist Binayak Sen till Friday, after the Chhattisgarh government sought time to brief its lawyer.
Sen, 61, was sentenced to life imprisonment on 24 December last year by a trial court in the Chhatisgarh capital of Raipur for sedition and links with Maoists. Subsequently on 10 February, the Chhattisgarh high court upheld the sentence and rejected his bail plea (See:Chhattisgarh HC throws out Binayak Sen's bail plea). Sen then appealed to the Supreme Court.
Sen is currently lodged in a jail in Raipur along with Maoist ideologue Narayan Sanyal and Kolkata-based businessman Piyush Guha, both of whom have also been awarded life terms in the same case. Sen was accused of acting as a courier between Sanyal and Guha.
The trial court verdict against Sen has been widely slammed by human rights activists in India and abroad – including dozens of Nobel Prize winners - who say he was victimised by Chhattisgarh's Bharatiya Janata Party government for highlighting human rights abuses.(See: Free Binayak Sen, 40 Nobel laureates urge PM)
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