Delhi riots 2020: HC defers hearing till November 21 on bail pleas by Khalid Saifi and others

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The Delhi High Court on Friday deferred hearing till November 21 on bail pleas of Khalid Saifi and other accused persons in a UAPA case related to the alleged conspiracy behind the 2020 riots.

A bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Rajnish Bhatnagar said that being a special bench, it does not assemble on a regular basis and therefore, it has to "take a call" on whether these bail pleas can be heard by it or if they have to be sent to the designated bench for such cases.

"We are posting all of them for 2:15 pm on Monday. We will have to take a call. This is likely to take a long time. We will have to take a call whether we can devote some time every day in the post lunch session," the bench said.

It observed that the cases were not part heard before it and were only tagged along with the bail plea by co-accused Umar Khalid.

"We don't seem to have heard any of these appeals. Arguments are yet to begin. They are just tagged along," Justice Mridul said.

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Besides Khalid, the bail pleas of Shifa Ur Rehman, Saleem Khan, Meeran Haider, Gulfisha Fatima and Salim Malik were listed before the court.

Delhi Police's challenge to the trial court order granting bail granted to former Congress councillor Ishrat Jahan in the case was also listed before the bench.

United Against Hate founder Khalid Saifi, Sharjeel Imam, Umar Khalid and several others have been booked under the anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and provisions of the Indian Penal Code for allegedly being the "masterminds" of the February 2020 riots, which left 53 people dead and over 700 injured.

The violence had erupted during the protests against CAA and NRC.

On October 18, the bench had refused to grant bail to Umar Khalid in the case, saying he was in constant touch with other co-accused and allegations against him were prima facie true.

The court had also said the acts of the accused prima facie qualified as "terrorist act" under the anti-terror law UAPA and the anti-CAA protests "metamorphosed into violent riots", which "prima facie seemed to be orchestrated at the conspiratorial meetings", and the statements of the witnesses indicate Umar Khalid's "active involvement" in the protests.

On October 28, the court had listed bail plea by JNU student Sharjeel Imam for hearing on December 16 after he urged that the case be deferred by six weeks.

He had said that he was seeking "further legal advice" following the court's observations pertaining to him while denying bail to co-accused Umar Khalid.

The court had observed in Umar Khalid's order that Sharjeel Imam "arguably was at the head of the conspiracy" and there existed a string of commonality running amongst all the co-accused.

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