The Bombay High Court on Thursday said that the condition of activist Varavara Rao has improved, but he will continue to remain at Mumbai’s Nanavati Hospital till December 14, reported PTI. The 80-year-old Telugu poet is one of the accused in the Bhima Koregaon violence case.

“There is some slight improvement,” a division bench of Justices SS Shinde and MS Karnik said after examining a medical report submitted by the hospital. “He shall continue to remain admitted there till December 14.”

The court also said that Rao’s family can continue to see him at the hospital. It will hear a petition filed by Rao seeking bail on medical grounds on December 14.

On November 18, the Bombay High Court had directed the authorities to shift Rao from Taloja jail to Nanavati Hospital, observing that he was “almost on deathbed”. It ruled that Rao should not be discharged from the hospital without informing the court, and that his family should be allowed to meet him at the hospital.

Rao’s lawyer Indira Jaising told the court that he suffered from kidney and liver complications and had brain atrophy. She had also said that there was “reasonable apprehension” that he will die in custody. In June this year too, Rao was admitted in a hospital after testing positive for the coronavirus.

Rao is among the activists and academics who have been accused of making inflammatory speeches at the Elgar Parishad conclave held at Shaniwar Wada in Pune on December 31, 2017, which the authorities claim triggered violence at Bhima-Koregaon war memorial the next day. He was arrested in August 2018.