In a 52-page judgment, the high court upheld the order of Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat, Karkardooma District Court, who had rejected Khalid’s regular bail application. (Express file)The Delhi High Court Tuesday refused to grant bail to activist Umar Khalid in a UAPA case related to alleged larger conspiracy behind the Northeast Delhi riots in 2020. Dismissing his bail plea, a division bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Rajnish Bhatnagar stated that they did not “find any merit” in it.
In a 52-page judgment, the court upheld the order of Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat, Karkardooma District Court, who had rejected the regular bail application of the former JNU student.
Here is what the high court said:
– “The Sessions Judge didn’t miss the wood for the trees and has extensively dealt with the contention of the rival parties to arrive at a just decision, which cannot be faulted, especially when at the stage of bail, the Learned Judge was mandated to only be satisfied to the extent of accusation being prima facie true and not conduct a mini trial,” the court observed.
– There appears to be a “premeditated conspiracy” for causing a disruptive ‘chakka jam’ and pre-planned protests at different planned sites in Delhi, which was engineered to escalate to a confrontational ‘chakka jam’ and incitement of violence and culminate in riots in natural course on specific dates, the court held
– The protest planned was not a typical protest, normal in political culture or democracy, but one far more destructive and injurious geared towards extremely grave consequences, the high court observed.
– It noted that “different roles were ascribed to different people (accused) in carrying out the said conspiracy.”
– The “weapons used”, the manner of attack and the “resultant deaths destruction” caused indicate that it was pre-planned, the court said.
– Cannot turn a blind eye to the speech delivered by Khalid at Amaravati in February 2020, the high court said while referring to the “clandestine” manner in which the speech was delivered when the administration had denied permission to deliver the speech.