Delhi High Court Issues Notice To Police On Umar Khalid's Bail Plea

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice to Delhi police on Umar Khalid's bail application in a UAPA case linked to the alleged larger conspiracy of the Delhi Riots 2020.

The division bench of Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Girish Kathpaliya issued notice to the Delhi police, following which the matter was listed for further hearing on August 29.

Former JNU Student leader and accused in Larger Conspiracy of Delhi Riots 2020 Umar Khalid has moved to the Delhi High Court seeking bail in a UAPA case. He is one of the accused in the larger Conspiracy of Delhi riots case 2020.

Umar Khalid has been in custody since September 2020. This investigation is still ongoing after the filing of charge sheets and supplementary charge sheets.

His bail petition was dismissed by the trial court and now he has moved to the High Court.

On May 28, Delhi's Karkardooma Court refused to grant regular bail to Umar Khalid. While rejecting the bail plea, the trial court referred to the order of the Delhi High Court, which said that allegations against the accused are prima facie true and he does not deserve bail.

In his order, Special Judge Sameer Bajpai said, "The Hon'ble High Court analysed the case against the applicant and finally concluded that allegations against the applicant are prima-facie true and that the embargo created by Section 43D(5) of UAPA squarely applies against the applicant and the applicant does not deserve bail."

"It is clear that the Hon'ble High Court has minutely considered the role of the applicant and declined the relief as he desired," the Special Judge observed in the order passed on May 28.

The trial court also said that the High Court did the surface analysis and concluded that a prima facie case is made out against the accused.

"As according to Vernon's case as relied upon by ld. counsel for the applicant, while considering bail, no 'deep analysis' of the facts of a case can be done, and only 'surface analysis' of the probative value of evidence has to be done and as such, the Hon'ble High Court has in fact done a complete surface analysis of the probative value of the evidence while considering the prayer of the applicant for grant of bail and after doing so it was concluded that prima-facie case is made out against the applicant," the trial court had noted in the order.

The court had said that when the Hon'ble High Court had already dismissed the criminal appeal of the applicant vide order dated October 18, 2022, and thereafter, the applicant approached the Hon'ble Supreme Court and withdrew his petition, the order of this Court as passed on March 24, 2022, has attained finality and now, in no stretch of imagination, this court can make analysis of the facts of the case as desired by the applicant and consider the relief as prayed by him.

The trial court has dismissed his two bail applications.

He was arrested in September 2020. Since then, he has been in custody. He had sought a regular bail under Section 437 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, read with Section 43D (5) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967 for the grant of regular bail.

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