Varavara Rao, a poet and activist, was denied permanent medical bail in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist ties case by the Bombay High Court today.
The 83-year-old activist's surrender to the Taloja jail authorities was delayed by three months by a bench of Justices SB Shukre and GA Sanap to allow him to have cataract surgery.
Varavara Rao's request that he be allowed to dwell in Hyderabad instead of Mumbai while on bail was denied by the court.
The high court also stated that various accusations made by Varavara Rao's lawyer Anand Grover regarding the absence of medical facilities and poor hygiene conditions in the Taloja prison in Navi Mumbai were true.
As a result, the court ordered Maharashtra's Inspector General of Prisons to produce a "frank" report on the quality of such facilities at the "Taloja prison in particular," as well as in all of the state's prisons.
The police were ordered by the high court to deliver a report to the court by April 30 of this year.
The court stated, "The IG prisons must guarantee that there are no grounds for convicts to raise claims about poor health services in prisons across the state."
It also instructed the special NIA court to expedite the Elgar Parishad case trial and conduct the proceedings on a daily basis.
Varavara Rao, who had been out on medical bail since February of last year, had entered three pleas.
He had requested that his medical bail be extended for another six months, that his temporary medical bail restrictions be modified so that he may stay in his hometown of Hyderabad, Telangana, while on bail, and that he be granted permanent bail on health grounds until the case trial was completed.
Varavara Rao, who has early signs of Parkinson's disease, was residing in a conference facility rented out to him by some Christian missionaries in Mumbai's Bandra district, according to his lawyer.
Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh, the NIA's lawyer, had objected to all of Varavara Rao's requests and urged the high court to remand him in prison.
Mr Singh stated that hundreds of other detainees, many of them were senior citizens with health problems, remained in prison and received medical attention at the prison hospital.
The complaint stems from alleged provocative comments made at the Elgar Parishad conference in Pune on December 31, 2017, which allegedly sparked unrest the next day near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial on the outskirts of the western Maharashtra city, according to the police.
The conclave was also allegedly organised by people with alleged Maoist ties, according to the Pune police.
The matter was then handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).