The Supreme Court on Monday adjourned till Friday the bail plea of human rights activist Binayak Sen who has been sentenced to life imprisonment for sedition and links with Maoists.
The ruling came after the Chhattisgarh government sought time to brief its lawyer. Sen, 61, had challenged the February 10 order of the Chhattisgarh high court rejecting his bail plea. Sen is at present lodged in a jail in Chhattisgarh capital Raipur after he was sentenced by a trial court there December 24, 2010 for sedition and for his links with Maoist ideologue Narayan Sanyal and Kolkata-based businessman Piyush Guha. Both of them have also been awarded life terms.
Sen was accused of acting as a courier between Sanyal and Guha. The trial court verdict against Sen, 61, was widely slammed by human rights activists in India and abroad, who say he was victimised by Chhattisgarh's Bharatiya Janata Party government for highlighting human rights abuses.