The Chhattisgarh High Court reected a second, more recent bail petition in November 2008. This time, the court refused to consider the unravelling evidence in the trial court as weighing the “arguments relating to the examination of the witnesses”is not an exercise to be undertaken by a bail court”.

Sen’s arrest has provoked international outrage, with demonstrations in India and abroad. Amnesty International, as well as 22 Nobel laureates — Amartya Sen included — have called for his release. BJP spokesperson and senior lawyer Ravi Shankar Prasad, the party in-charge for Chhattisgarh, dismisses this as part of “a systemic international campaign which ignores that in the recent state elections, the people of Chhattisgarh — both urban and rural— have spoken in favour of the government”.

Sen’s legal woes have taken on political colours. State Congress leader Ajit Jogi says: “I know Binayak Sen to be an honest, selfless, server of the poor. To deny bail to such a person is totally wrong. While I can’t comment on the court’s decision, if I was chief minister, I wouldn’t have opposed bail”.

Wife Ilina Sen recently met P Chidambaram. “He was very sympathetic” she says, “but pointed out that the matter was out of his hands, and the decision rested solely with the state of Chhattisgarh”. The Chhattisgarh government continues to oppose bail. Ravi Shankar Prasad cautions against “glossing over the naked violence of the Naxalites under the cover of Binayak Sen”.

At the centre of the storm, Sen remains in Central Jail, Raipur and his trial will likely last a couple of years. Doctors from Sen’s alma mater CMC Vellore, along with medics from Raipur and Bilaspur, have examined him and certify to his “persistent loss of weight, heart problems and arthritis”. Wife Ilina worries that Sen has a “suspected prostrate problem”. Illness, alone, can be grounds for granting bail. Meanwhile, the trial continues in Raipur. Key witnesses are turning hostile, and the case itself is fast unravelling.

... contd.