On July 5, Jesuit priest and tribal rights activist Father Stan Swamy, who was jailed under the anti-terror Unlawful Acts (Prevention) Act [UAPA] in the Bhima-Koregaon case, died in judicial custody. For the past several months, the 84-year-old’s repeated pleas for bail on health grounds did not bear any result. On July 3, a bench comprising Justices SS Shinde and NJ Jamdar had adjourned the hearing in his most recent bail plea to July 6 after Swamy’s counsel, senior advocate Mihir Desai, said Swamy’s health was critical and that he was still in the ICU.

Recently, a Delhi court said it would hear the bail application of former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student leader Umar Khalid, arrested under the UAPA in the northeast Delhi riots conspiracy case, on July 27. Besides him, Jamia Millia Islamia student Asif Iqbal Tanha, JNU students Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita, Jamia Coordination Committee members Safoora Zargar, former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain and several others have also been booked under the stringent law in the case. The Delhi High Court had granted bail to Tanha, Narwal, and Kalita in the case, saying the State blurred the line between the right to protest and terrorist activity in its anxiety to suppress dissent.