The Delhi high court on Friday issued notice on former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) scholar Umar Khalid’s petition seeking bail in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case.
A bench of Justices Prathiba M Singh and Vikas Mahajan asked additional solicitor general SV Raju and advocate Dhruv Pande, representing the Delhi Police, to file a response to the petition against a trial court’s May 4 order denying Khalid bail.
Khalid sought interim bail citing the Supreme Court’s May 22 decision referring to the Chief Justice of India the larger question of how its landmark three-judge ruling in Union of India versus KA Najeeb (2021) ought to be applied in Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) cases involving prolonged incarceration and delayed trials and granting interim bail to two co-accused in the Delhi riots case.
The high court fixed August 27 as the next date of hearing when it will hear co-accused Sharjeel Imam’s petition against the same order. “Considering the nature of the matter, issue notice on the appeal and the application for interim bail. List on August 27,” the court said.
The trial court on July 4 denied Sharjeel and Khalid’s bail, saying there were no grounds to entertain the fresh plea as it could not even examine whether circumstances had changed since the Supreme Court rejected their pleas in January.
Additional sessions judge Sameer Bajpai of the Karkardooma Courts observed that the divergence of opinion between the January 5 Supreme Court judgment in the Gulfisha Fatima case and the subsequent ruling in the one involving Syed Iftikhar Andrabi had been referred to a larger bench. He added the trial court could not consider the fresh applications on any ground until that issue is settled.
{{/usCountry}}Additional sessions judge Sameer Bajpai of the Karkardooma Courts observed that the divergence of opinion between the January 5 Supreme Court judgment in the Gulfisha Fatima case and the subsequent ruling in the one involving Syed Iftikhar Andrabi had been referred to a larger bench. He added the trial court could not consider the fresh applications on any ground until that issue is settled.
{{/usCountry}}The Supreme Court expressed “serious reservations” about the reasoning adopted in the January 5 ruling. It observed that it may not have correctly applied the principles laid down in the 2021 judgment in Union of India vs KA Najeeb, which recognised that prolonged incarceration and delay in trial can override the statutory restrictions on bail in UAPA Section 43D(5).
In his petition, Khalid argued that the trial court erred in holding that there were no grounds to entertain a fresh bail application. He contended that the finding was erroneous, since the trial had made no progress and the charges were yet to be framed.
The Delhi Police described Khalid and Imam as the intellectual architects behind the entire conspiracy. They alleged the two worked in tandem with the other co-conspirators, escalating the communal violence during the February 2020 Delhi riots.