The Bombay High Court on Thursday granted bail to former Delhi University associate professor Hany Babu in the high-profile Elgar Parishad case, noting that his incarceration of over five years without trial amounted to violation of the fundamental right to personal liberty. A division bench of Justices A S Gadkari and R R Bhonsale, which had completed the hearing of the bail plea in the first week of October, ordered on Thursday to release Babu on a personal bond of Rs one lakh with sureties of the same amount.

The court stressed that ''it is by now a well settled and recognized principle of law that prolonged incarceration without trial amounts to infringement of the right of an accused enshrined under Article 21 of the Constitution''.

''The prolonged incarceration and unlikelihood of

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