‘Casts serious aspersion that Odisha’s judiciary is afflicted by caste-based bias’: Supreme Court declares casteist bail conditions against anti-mining activists ‘null and void’

TODAY, a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi declared that bail conditions in a series of orders passed by lower courts in Odisha and the Orissa High Court between May 2025 and January 2026 were ‘reflective of caste based bias’. Subsequently, the Court found the bail conditions to be ‘null and void’. The Court had taken suo motu cognizance of the matter, following news reports highlighting such conditions.

The matter largely arises from anti-mining protests that have broken out in Odisha’s Rayagada and Kalahandi districts triggered by plans to open a bauxite mine spanning over 1500 acres in the Sijimali hills, an ecologically sensitive region with crucial livelihood and cultural significance for Adivasi inhabitants in the region.

As per reports, individuals involved in the protests have faced criminalisation through charges of rioting, obstructing officials, damaging property and attacking public servants during protests. While at least forty individuals have faced arrests, since 2023 at least eight bail orders have been issued – one from the Orissa High Court and seven from two judges from the Rayagada district court – attaching problematic bail conditions, such as ‘clean[ing] the premises of the Kasipur Police Station in the morning hour…for two months’. All accused persons affected by such orders have been Dalit or Adivasi persons.

Last year, The Leaflet had reported that the Orissa High Court had issued similar bail conditions in other cases, such as in May 2025, when it directed an accused to clean the premises of the ICICI Bank daily for two months as a bail condition in a bank fraud case, while directing another accused to clean wards and rooms of a hospital as a bail condition in a robbery case.