The Bombay High Court on Tuesday pulled up the Maharashtra government for causing delay in the hearing of a plea seeking to cancel the bail of a prime accused person in the murder of activist Govind Pansare, Bar and Bench reported.

Pansare was attacked by two unidentified gunmen on his way home from a morning walk in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur city on February 16, 2015. He died of bullet wounds four days later.

On Tuesday, Justice SV Kotwal noted that the Maharashtra government’s petition seeking cancellation of Virendrasinh Tawade’s bail has been pending since 2018. “If it is cancellation, there should be urgency by prosecution,” the judge added.

He made the comments after the public prosecutor sought an adjournment in the case. The judge then posted the matter for hearing on November 22.

The Central Bureau of Investigation had arrested Tawade in 2016. Later, a Special Investigation Team took him into custody, saying that he was the “mastermind brain” behind the killing.

In 2018, a sessions court in Kolhapur granted him bail as trial in the case was yet to start.

The state government had challenged the order, arguing that the court did not take into account that Tawade was the main accused in the case. The plea to cancel the bail stated that Tawade was a member of Hindutva group Sanatan Sanstha, which Pansare had opposed.

On August 3 this year, the High Court had directed the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad to take over the inquiry in the case from the Special Investigation Team. A bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Sharmila Deshmukh observed that more than enough time had been given to the Special Investigation Team to look into the murder of the activist.

“It is necessary that the investigation is taken to its logical end, failing which, the perpetrators of the crime would be emboldened,” the order said.