Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Tuesday, June 22, directed the National Investigation Agency to file its affidavit by July 3 in response to the bail petition of activist Sudha Bharadwaj, in jail since August 28, 2018.Bharadwaj is one of 16 that the National Investigation Agency has incarcerated as accused in the Elgar Parishad case and booked under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).Bharadwaj had sought default bail, contending the trial judge was not authorised to take cognisance of the 2019 charge sheet filed against her, as the judge was at that time not designated as special judge under the NIA Act to hear matters pertaining to the UAPA.A division bench of Justices S.S. Shinde and N.J. Jamadar on Tuesday directed NIA’s advocate Sandesh Patil to file an affidavit in response to the petition and posted the matter for further hearing on July 3.As The Wire has reported before, in her petition, Bharadwaj relied on documents received from the high court under the Right to Information (RTI) Act to demonstrate that the court of Additional Sessions Judge Kishor Vadane in Pune was not authorised to take cognisance of the 1,800-page supplementary charge sheet filed by the Pune police in February 2019.“This judge was not designated as a special NIA judge at the time and hence, could not have taken cognisance of the charge sheet. We are also challenging an earlier order passed by this judge in November 2018 granting the police time to file the charge sheet,” Bharadwaj’s counsel Yug Chaudhry argued.The case relates to alleged inflammatory speeches delivered at the ”Elgar Parishad” conclave, held at Shaniwarwada in Pune on December 31, 2017, which Pune Police claimed triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial located on the city”s outskirts. Police have also claimed Maoist links to the incident.The National Investigation Agency (NIA) later took over the probe into the case.(With PTI inputs)