A Delhi court on Tuesday rejected the interim bail application filed by Delhi University student activist Omar Khalid, seeking to take care of his ailing mother and participate in post-death rituals of his uncle.
The order was approved by Additional Sessions Judge Sameer Bajpai of Delhi’s Karkardooma court.
Omar Khalid and others have been booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), Anti-Terrorism Act, and provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for allegedly being the “masterminds” of the 2020 riots that left 53 people dead and over 700 injured in northeast Delhi.
The violence broke out during widespread protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
The fresh setback comes a day after a ray of hope appeared for Omar Khalid as the Supreme Court criticized its January 5 ruling denying bail to him and activist Sharjeel Imam in the alleged larger conspiracy case linked to it.
The Supreme Court bench categorically emphasized that “bail is the rule and imprisonment is the exception” even in prosecutions under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan, while granting bail to Jammu and Kashmir resident Syed Iftikhar Andrabi in a drug terror case investigated by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), expressed “serious reservations” about the reasoning adopted earlier this year by another two-judge bench comprising Justices Aravind Kumar and N V Angaria in the Delhi riots conspiracy case, HT had reported earlier.
The court held that the January 5 judgment 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.
While reading the operative portions of the judgment in open court, Justice Bhuiyan observed: “Bail is not an empty legal slogan. Rather, it is a constitutional principle flowing from Article 21, and the presumption of innocence is the cornerstone of any civilized society governed by the rule of law.”
“Even under UAPA, bail is the rule and imprisonment is the exception. Bail can only be denied in a particular case depending on the facts of that particular case,” the bench added.
