Misleading, fallacious medical report led to Sudha Bharadwaj bail denial: Relatives

Sudha Bharadwaj with her daughter Maaysha

By Our Representative

The family members and friends* of Sudha Bharadwaj, who was arrested two years ago in the Bhima Koregaon Conspiracy Case, have described the denial of bail to the top human rights lawyer and labour leader by a division bench of the Bombay High Court on August 28 “as gross injustice.”
Maaysha, Bharadwaj’s daughter, said, it is ironical that her mother who has spent her lifetime working with the marginalized communities in their struggles for justice and dignity and upheld the rights enshrined in Constitution, is being denied the basic right to bail, especially during a pandemic, when courts have relaxed rules of parole, even for those convicted of murder. This is happening “despite her frail health.”
Bharadwaj, who is currently in the Byculla Women’s jail in Mumbai, had moved the Bombay High Court on June 11 seeking bail on medical grounds, citing vulnerability to the raging pandemic of Covid-19 on account of her health conditions.
In her bail application, she had said that she suffers from diabetes and hypertension, and has a past history of pulmonary tuberculosis – all of which coupled with her age of almost 60 years, makes her more vulnerable to Covid-19 infection. She also has complaints of osteoarthritis, which makes movement difficult.
In response, the Byculla jail authorities submitted a medical report on July 21, confirming that she has diabetes, osteoarthritis, and a history of pulmonary tuberculosis. It also showed that her hypertension had aggravated to ischemic heart disease, a heart problem caused by narrowing of arteries that causes reduced blood flow to the heart muscle and can lead to heart attack.
This was reiterated in a second medical report submitted on August 3, which caused concern to her family and friends. The jail was then asked to submit another report during the hearing dated August 17. The third medical report, dated August 21 noted only diabetes, ignoring her ischaemic heart condition.
“This is particularly worrisome as with this condition Sudha Bharadwaj is a potential candidate for myocardial infarction and should undergo further medical investigations in the form of CT angiography/echocardiogram. This report further overlooks her medical condition of osteoarthritis and records a mere general complaint of ‘bodyache’,” the statement said, terming, the medical report is misleading, fallacious and incomplete.
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*Maaysha Bharadwaj, Akshra Bhardwaj, Kaladas Dahariya, Ramakant Banjare, Shreya, Kavita Srivastav, Indira Chakravarti, Alok Shukla, Vaibhav Vaish, Madhur Bharatiya, VimalBhai, Priyanshu Gupta, Aparna Choudhary, Bijaya Chanda, AP Josy, Malini Subramania, K J Mukherjee, Smiti Sharma, Neelabh Dubey, Shikha Pandey, Manan Ganguli, Priyanka Shukla, Monu Kuhar, Anuradha Talwar

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