Sen’s petition challenges a February 10 decision of the Chhattisgarh High Court refusing bail during the pendency of his appeal against conviction and sentence.
A Raipur additional district and sessions court had on December 24 convicted Sen and Kolkata businessman Piyush Guha of sedition charges for allegedly acting as courier of messages from jailed Maoist leader Narayan Sanyal to the cadre and thus, helping them to organise the fight against the state.
The 58-year-old Sen’s petition before the SC has not changed much from what he had pleaded before the HC. He had termed the trial court verdict as a misreading of the circumstantial evidence, which lacked cohesion, and hence, not capable of being the basis for conviction.
Moreover, he has also cited the Supreme Court’s May 25, 2009, order granting him bail on personal bond without sureties during the pendency of trial before the Raipur court. Sen was arrested on May 14, 2007 from Bilaspur and it was the SC which had refused to grant him bail in December 2007.
Sen makes light of the Raman Singh government’s charge that he acted as a courier for an alleged Naxal prisoner that has landed him in cases under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.
A professional doctor and an alumnus of the prestigious Christian Medical College, Vellore, and an IDPL National Awardee in the field of public health, Sen had said that during his every visit to jail, he was thoroughly frisked and could not have carried the letters from alleged naxal prisoners.
He said he had been working in Chhattisgarh for over 25 years and set up several health centres and was previously a faculty member of the Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
He said he deserved bail as his appeal against conviction was pending before the HC and that he had already spent nearly two years in prison on charges which were not backed by cogent evidence.