The Bombay High Court on Tuesday granted bail to Sachin Prakashrao Andure, convicted in the 2013 murder case of rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar, and suspended his sentence, pending his appeal against conviction. This is the second convict who has secured bail in the Narendra Dabholkar murder case. Co-convict Sharad Bhausaheb Kalaskar was granted bail in April this year.

A division bench of Justices Sarang V Kotwal and Ranjitsinha R Bhonsale on Tuesday allowed Andure’s interim application on furnishing a personal bond of Rs. 50,000 along with sureties of the same amount. The High Court also directed him to appear before the Pune Police every month for a year, and four times a year thereafter till disposal of his appeal against conviction.

Advocates Niteen Pradhan and Virendra Ichalkaranjikar, representing Sachin Andure, had argued that an extra-judicial confession was recorded in the case. They argued that there was no Test Identification Parade (TIP) or recovery of the weapon.

The Pune Police, which first probed the murder, handed over the investigation to the CBI in 2014 on a High Court directive, which began overseeing the probe in August 2015. The trial began in September 2021 once charges were framed against the five accused.

In its chargesheet, the CBI stated that two witnesses, Kiran Kamble and Vinay Kelkar, had seen Kalaskar and Andure shooting Dabholkar while he was on his morning walk in August 2013.

In May 2024, Special Judge P P Jadhav convicted Kalaskar and Andure of Dabholkar’s murder and sentenced them to life imprisonment. The court also acquitted three others, citing insufficient evidence.

In April, while granting bail to Kalaskar, a bench of Justices Ajay S Gadkari and Ranjitsinha R Bhonsale observed that the CBI did not conduct Kalaskar’s Test Identification Parade (TIP).