In a landmark order, the Bombay High Court has held that the Kolhapur Sessions Court had no jurisdiction to review its own bail order in the 2015 Govind Pansare murder case while granting bail to Dr. Virendrasinh Tawade, the prime suspect in the high-profile assassination of the veteran communist leader.
A bench of Justice Shivkumar Dige observed: “While canceling the bail, the sessions judge revised his own order, which is not permissible.” The court further observed that since Tawade had already been released on bail on the same charges, the sessions judge “should not have revoked the bail on the same charges.”
Tawade, who was granted bail by the Kolhapur court in February 2018 after being in police custody for two years, approached the High Court after his bail was later canceled on the prosecution’s plea.
The Supreme Court’s order outlines the procedural history of the case. After the state challenged Tawade’s bail, the Supreme Court had allowed the prosecutor to withdraw his plea for quashing, with the liberty to file a fresh petition in the Sessions Court. Subsequently, the prosecution entered a new plea on July 16, 2018, citing a September 2018 witness statement that allegedly addressed Tawade’s role as a conspirator.
Advocates Pushpa Ganediwala, Virendra Ichalkaranjikar, Siddh Vidya and SD Khot, appearing for Tawade, argued that other witnesses had earlier leveled similar allegations but the court had granted bail. They also pointed out that other co-defendants with similar roles had already been released on bail.
Tawade was back in custody for over a year after the Sessions Court canceled his bail, a move the Supreme Court now finds impermissible.
Opposing the plea, additional public prosecutor Veera Shinde and lawyers Amit Singh and Payal Shah, representing the Pansare family, argued that Tawade was in Kolhapur at the time of the murder. They also referred to the 2018 Nalasopara arms transport case, claiming it had revealed new evidence linking Tawade to the wider conspiracy.
Justice Dige, however, rejected the argument and observed: “It appears that the Sessions Judge has revised his own order of his predecessor… The charges against the applicant are of conspiracy. The other co-accused playing the same role have been released on bail. In view of these facts, I am inclined to grant the application.”
The Supreme Court clarified that bail can only be revoked if the suspect abuses his liberty, violates the bail conditions, if the bail was granted without knowledge of legal restrictions, or if it was obtained through fraud or misrepresentation. In Tawade’s case, the court said, none of these grounds had been proven.
The judge further observed, “Undoubtedly, bail can be canceled if there are any new developments or changed circumstances, but in the present case, there is no such change. Mere recording of a witness statement three and a half years after the incident cannot be a ground for canceling bail.”
The Pansare murder case has yielded four charge sheets so far. According to the prosecution, Tawade is closely linked to absconding suspect Sarang Akolkar, and email exchanges from 2009 are said to indicate coordination between them. It was also alleged that Tawade, along with co-accused Amit Degvekar and others, attended a meeting in Jalna in 2011-2012 where the killing of “intellectuals who spoke against the Hindu religion” was discussed.
However, the Supreme Court found significant gaps in the prosecution’s story, including the six-year gap between the emails and the murder, and contradictions between eyewitness accounts of who actually shot Pansare.
The ruling marks a major setback for the prosecution in the decade-old case, and reinforces the judiciary’s position that lower courts cannot review their own bail orders without new and compelling circumstances.
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