The Delhi High Court on Tuesday denied bail to former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student and activist Umar Khalid in the Delhi Riots conspiracy case [Umar Khalid v. State of National Capital Territory of Delhi]. A division bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Rajnish Bhatnagar passed the order.
“We don’t find any merit in the bail appeal. “The appeal is dismissed,” the court ordered.
A detailed judgement is awaited.
The Court had reserved its verdict on September 9 after hearing arguments from Senior Advocate Trideep Pais and Special Public Prosecutor Amit Prasad.
The arguments in the High Court went on for more than 20 days.
Khalid had approached the High Court challenging the dismissal of his bail application by the Karkardooma court in March this year.
He was arrested by the Delhi Police in September 2020 and charged with criminal conspiracy, rioting, unlawful assembly, and several sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
He has remained in jail since then.
Arguments on Khalid’s bail started in April. During the very first hearing, the judges remarked that they found his speech at Amravati obnoxious and inciteful.
The judges also said that the speech might be innocuous in isolation but could have been a bugle call for something larger.
They questioned Pais about what Khalid meant when he used words like “inquilab” and “krantikari”.
As the hearings progressed into May and the bench’s composition changed—Justice Mridul took over a different Division Bench—the two judges stated that they would sit almost daily as a special bench in the post-lunch session to complete the hearing on the matter.
Though they initially intended to finish the arguments before June, seeing as how the hearings were taking much longer, the judges decided to continue after the court vacation in June.
Eventually, the hearings went on for more than 20 days, prompting even the bench to remark that it seemed as if they were hearing an appeal against conviction and not a bail matter.
