Tuesday, the Supreme Court postponed hearing Umar Khalid’s bail request in a UAPA case involving the alleged conspiracy behind the North-East Delhi riots in February 2020. Khalid is a former student of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
Justices Bela Trivedi and Dipankar Dutta’s panel postponed the hearing because senior attorney Kapil Sibal, who was supposed to represent Khalid, was not there.
Sibal was making his case before the five-judge Constitution bench that was debating the appeals made in opposition to the repeal of Article 370.
The bench expressed its disapproval over the request for adjournment on behalf of Khalid and granted the last opportunity saying no adjournment shall be granted in the case.
It has now posted the matter for hearing next week.
Khalid had approached the top court challenging an October 2022 Delhi High Court verdict that had denied bail to him.
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.
