A Delhi court on Friday issued notice to Delhi Police on fresh bail applications filed by Omar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, seeking bail in the larger Delhi riots conspiracy case.
Additional Sessions Judge Sumedh Kumar Sethi of Karkardooma Courts listed the pleas for hearing on July 4.
Both Khalid and Imam, in their bail applications, cited a change in circumstances, highlighting the May 18 judgment by a bench of Supreme Court Justices BV Nagaratna and Ujjal Bhuyan while granting bail to Syed Iftikhar Andrabi, a resident of Jammu and Kashmir, in a narco-terrorism case being investigated by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). The Supreme Court expressed “serious reservations” about the reasoning adopted earlier this year in the January 5 judgment, stating that it failed to properly apply the binding principles laid down by a larger three-judge bench in Union of India v. K. A. Najeeb (2021), which recognized that prolonged imprisonment and trial delays can override statutory restrictions on bail under Section 43D(5) of the UAPA. The court also objected to the trend that Khaled and Imam cannot renew their application for release on bail until after the interrogation of protected witnesses or after one year, whichever comes first.
In his bail application, Imam said, “The applicant has been in detention for nearly six years. The trial has not even progressed to the laying of charges. The prosecution proposes to examine more than 900 witnesses. Regarding the undisputed facts, K. A. Najib correctly applied as Syed Iftikhar Andarabi declared to apply with full force to the applicant’s case.” “It is noteworthy that the applicant, 38 years of age, a scholar and scholar, was arbitrarily detained in the impugned FIR on September 13 and has spent more than 5 years and 9 months in detention till the date of filing of the present application. As such, the increase in the period of imprisonment constitutes a further change in circumstances entitling the applicant to bail,” Khalid said in his submission.
Certainly, on January 5, the court rejected the bail application submitted by Khaled and Imam, while granting relief to five other defendants.
A bench of Justices Kumar and Anjaria held that Khalid and Imam played a “central and formative role” in the alleged conspiracy behind the February 2020 northeast Delhi riots, and ruled that lengthy imprisonment alone cannot justify bail in UAPA cases. The ruling also relied on the Supreme Court’s 2019 ruling in the case of NIA Vs Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali, which significantly tightened bail standards under the UAPA.
