The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday urged the Supreme Court to cancel the bail of civil liberties activist Anand Teltumbde, accusing him of being one of the key conspirators in the Bhima-Koregaon violence.

The central agency contended that he was erroneously granted bail by Bombay High Court despite the top court earlier dismissing his anticipatory bail plea on the ground that a “prima facie case was made out against him”.

In a special leave petition assailing the November 18 bail order, the NIA submitted that the high court had granted bail to Teltumbde by “conducting a mini-trial and a roving inquiry analysing each and every document and (Section) 164 statements (recorded before a magistrate)”, which it cannot do under the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). A Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justices Hima Kohli and J.B. Pardiwala listed the matter for hearing on Friday upon a request by solicitor-general Tushar Mehta for early hearing.

Initially, the bench had said it would hear the matter at 12.45pm on Tuesday itself, but Mehta sought adjournment till Friday as one of his colleagues was travelling.

Advocate Aparna Bhat, appearing for Teltumbde, said she was on caveat on behalf of the accused and should be heard before any order is passed.

According to the NIA, the high court had, while hearing the bail petition, examined in detail as many as five documents — letters seized during searches and investigations — and three Section 164 statements.

The NIA said the high court had gone into the details of each document and witness statement and made observations that would influence the trial and the investigation of the agency, which is contrary to settled judicial pronouncements of the apex court.

The NIA said “such an order lies in the teeth of the observation made by this Hon’ble Court” while dismissing Teltumbde’s anticipatory bail plea on March 16, 2020. The Supreme Court had held that “we are of the opinion that it cannot be said that no prima facie case is made out”.

The NIA alleged that Teltumbde is an active and senior member of the CPI (Maoist) working in the urban areas and had been in regular contact with the other co-accused — Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson, Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut, Shoma Sen, Varavara Rao, Gautam Navlakha, Sudha Bharadwaj, Arun Ferriera, Vernon Gonsalves, Stan Swamy, Hany Babu and Harshali Potdar.

The agency claimed that all of them were members of the CPI (Maoist) and had been actively involved in furthering a larger conspiracy and the commission of various crimes on behalf of the banned organisation.

“That the respondent herein was also the General Secretary of the CPDR and a member of the Anuradha Ghandy Memorial Committee (AGMC) which are frontal organisations of the CPI (Maoists) and which work on the direction of CPI (Maoists) and in such capacity as General Secretary of CPDR took efforts for the release of a CPI (Maoists) cadre named Murugan and G.N. Saibaba (another convict) accused in a CPI (Maoists) related case,” the NIA alleged.