Mangaluru: Weeks after the Mumbai Press Club created a controversy over defendants in the Elgar Parishad case visiting the club, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has now swooped in. The central agency, which is handling the controversial 2018 case, on Thursday, May 15, sought cancellation of the bail granted to two accused – Telugu poet-activist Varavara Rao and lawyer-academic Sudha Bharadwaj.In the application moved before the special NIA court, the agency claimed that on January 19, the accused visited the Mumbai Press Club and interacted with their co-accused in the case, which is in violation of their bail conditions.Rao, who is 85 years old, was granted bail in February 2021 after his health deteriorated inside jail. Among the many bail conditions listed in the interim order passed by the lower court is a prohibition on communication with his co-accused. “He shall not try to contact or communicate with co-accused or any other person involved in similar activities,” one of the points in the interim bail order, granted on medical grounds, states.Similarly, Bharadwaj’s bail, secured on technical grounds, also restricts her from communicating with her co-accused.Although the bail condition exists, it is practically impossible to enforce, considering that all the accused attend court every fortnight and some of them are represented by the same lawyers.Both Rao and Bharadwaj have been given time to respond to the NIA’s application.The Mumbai Press Club controversy stems from an informal get-together on January 19 of a few accused in the Elgar Parishad case at the club. The club, accusing three senior journalists – Gurbir Singh, Bernard D’Mello, and Shrikant Modak – of arranging the meeting, suspended their membership for six years.Singh moved the Mumbai City Civil Court and secured an interim order in his favour, which not only restored his membership but also allowed him to contest the club’s upcoming elections. The court, in the interim order, observed that “prima facie the action appeared to be only with an intent to prevent him from contesting the elections of the club”.Also read: Mumbai Press Club Suspensions Over Elgar Parishad Accused Visit Spark Row; NIA Inquiry Raises StakesThe Elgar Parishad case, which began in early 2018 with pan-India raids on the residences of human rights defenders and subsequent arrests, has dragged on without a trial for close to eight years. Originally handled by Pune Police and later transferred to the NIA, the case alleges that the activists have connections with the banned CPI (Maoist) party.The investigation labelled the accused persons as “urban Naxals”. In its application seeking cancellation of the bails granted to Rao and Bharadwaj, the NIA has once again stressed the allegation that the accused are “urban Naxals” who could be meeting other accused persons to “continue Naxal activities”.The NIA has relied on the Mumbai Press Club’s committee report that held Singh, D’Mello and Modak responsible for organising the meeting in the club. After the three journalists were suspended, the NIA had visited the club and had sought details of the meeting, including CCTV footage.In the applications seeking bail cancellation, the NIA has mentioned that they have closely tracked the Call Data Records of Rao, Bharadwaj and other accused in the case, who were also present at the meeting, to establish they were present in the club around the same time.The Elgar Parishad case, built heavily on electronic evidence, has been questioned by several digital experts both in India and internationally. In 2021, as part of a collaborative investigative series published by The Wire, it was found that several of the activists named in the case were also possible victims of Pegasus malware. Similar reports corroborating The Wire’s findings were released by different independent labs.In all, 16 persons – all activists, lawyers and academics – were arrested in the case. One of them, Stan Swamy, who was 84 years old, died in 2021 after contracting COVID-19, allegedly due to lack of adequate and timely medical care in prison. Of the remaining 15, only one person, Surendra Gadling, a Nagpur-based human rights lawyer, is still languishing in jail. The Bombay High Court granted him bail early this month, but as he has another pending case, he is yet to be released.