Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra of the Supreme Court recused himself on Wednesday from hearing the bail petition filed by former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Umar Khalid in an Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act case related to the alleged conspiracy behind the February 2020 riots in North-East Delhi.
The case was scheduled to be heard before a bench of Justices AS Bopanna and Mishra.
Khalid has petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn an October 2022 Delhi High Court decision that had refused him bail.
Khalid, arrested by Delhi Police in September 2020, in the High Court had sought bail on grounds that he neither had any “criminal role” in the violence in the city’s North-East area nor any “conspiratorial connect” with any other accused in the case.
The Delhi police had opposed the bail plea of Khalid.
He had approached the High Court challenging the dismissal of his bail application by the trial court in March 2022.
He was charged with criminal conspiracy, rioting, unlawful assembly as well as several sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
Besides Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, activist Khalid Saifi, JNU students Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita, Jamia Coordination Committee members Safoora Zargar, former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain and several others were booked under the stringent law in the case.
The violence had erupted during the protests against CAA and NRC and had left 53 people dead and over 700 injured.