The Delhi High Court was responding to the delay in the trial cited as one of the major reasons to grant bail by the lawyers of the accused
Denying bail to activists Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and eight others, the Delhi High Court on Tuesday said a hurried trial in the 2020 riots conspiracy case will be “detrimental” to both the accused and the State.
Khalid, Imam, Mohd Saleem Khan, Shifa Ur Rehman, Athar Khan, Meeran Haider, Abdul Khalid Saifi, Gulfisha Fatima and Shadab Ahmed have been behind bars for the past five years in an anti-terror law case linked to the alleged conspiracy behind the February 2020 riots in Delhi.
“All the appeals are dismissed,” said a bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Shalinder Kaur, while acting on the bail pleas. “A hurried trial would also be detrimental to the rights of both the Appellants and the State. The parties have informed this Court that the trial is currently at the stage of hearing arguments on the framing of charges, thus, it indicates that the case is progressing.”
The court was responding to the delay in the trial cited as one of the major reasons to grant bail by the lawyers of the accused.
The division bench noted that the Delhi Police has filed a 3,000-page chargesheet with an additional 30,000 pages of electronic evidence. It observed the police had carried out a detailed investigation, leading to the arrest of several people and, in such a background, “the pace of the trial will progress naturally”.
A different bench of Justices Subramonium Prasad and Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar rejected the appeal of Tasleem Ahmed against a bail rejection order of the trial court.
Khalid, Imam and several others were booked under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and provisions of IPC for allegedly being the “masterminds” of the February 2020 riots, which left 53 people dead and over 700 injured. The violence erupted during the protests against the CAA and NRC.
The accused have been in jail since 2020 and they moved the high court against a trial court order dismissing their bail pleas. While challenging this order, Imam, Khalid and others had cited their long incarceration and parity with other co-accused who were granted bail.
WHAT DID THE PROSECUTION SAY?
The prosecution opposed the bail pleas saying it was not a case of spontaneous riots but a case where riots were “planned well in advance” with a “sinister motive” and “well-thought-out conspiracy”.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta contended it was a conspiracy to defame India on a global level and merely citing long incarceration was no ground for bail. He argued that the intention behind the riots was to globally defame the nation through a “well-planned and orchestrated” criminal conspiracy by the accused persons.
Delhi Police argued that it was not a spontaneous riot but a well-organised act planned in advance, aimed at a particular day and time. It was alleged the protests were part of a conspiracy of the accused persons to cause violence at the time of the visit of then US President Donald Trump.
