The state government this week granted sanction to prosecute activists S arrested in the Elgar Parishad case on charges of sedition and waging war against India among other charges under Indian Penal Code.

Assistant commissioner of police (Swargate division) on Thursday filed the sanction order issued by deputy secretary (governor’s office) Vijay Patil on December 10 before special court judge, K D Vadane, through public prosecutor Ujjwala Pawar.

Pawar told TOI, “At the time of filing the chargesheet against the five activists and five others on the run, we had mentioned before the court that the investigation officer had submitted a report seeking government permission to prosecute the activists for committing offences under Section 153 (A) of IPC, among other charges. We had also mentioned that the sanction order would be filed later.”

She said, “The competent authority, after studying the report, accorded sanction under Section 196 (1) of Criminal Procedure Code. After receiving the sanction order, we filed it before court. We had earlier obtained government sanction for prosecuting the activists under sections of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act,” she added.

Dhawale, Wilson, Gadling, Sen and Raut were arrested on June 6 for alleged links with banned CPI (Maoist) during simultaneous raids by Pune police. Five other activists were arrested for the same reason in August. On November 15, Pune police had filed a chargesheet against Gadling and the four other activists arrested on June 6 and five “underground Maoist operatives”, including three top Maoist leaders, for “plot to kill the Prime Minister of India, conspiracy to create unrest, overthrow the government and wage a war against the country”.

The court on Thursday deferred hearing on the bail plea of Gadling as he, Dhawale, Wilson and Raut were not produced before court as no escort was available for seeking their custody from Yerawada central jail. The court will continue hearing arguments of Gadling and others on December 17.