NEW DELHI: Former JNU scholar Umar Khalid on Friday requested earlier than the Delhi Excessive Courtroom the premise on which the Delhi police made him an accused in a UAPA case associated to the alleged bigger conspiracy behind the February 2020 northeast Delhi violence. Showing earlier than Justices Navin Chwla and Shalinder Kaur, senior advocate Trideep Pais argued no criminality was alleged towards many individuals who allegedly attended the conspiracy conferences or made telephone calls put up the violence.
“There was a meeting; bulk of the meeting is not an accused. How am I an accused? There are two from the meeting who are accused? One Sharjeel Imam and myself. How are we accused when others are not?” requested the senior lawyer.
Pais additional argued the variety of folks current at protests, conferences, on calls — none had been made an accused.
“What is the basis of making this person or that person an accused is not even known?” he requested.
He referred to Swaraj India chief Yogendra Yadav and filmmaker Rahul Roy who weren’t accused within the case regardless of their presence within the alleged conspiracy conferences and a purported WhatsApp group.
“Of the people who made the call (post violence), five are not even made accused. Saba Diwan, Rahul Roy, etc.,” said Pais.
He went on, “There are other people in that meeting.. With regard to the meeting where there are witness statements, there were other people in the meeting. For example, in the Jangpura meeting, there is one Mr Yogender Yadav. He is not an accused. There is Mr Purushottam Sharma. He is not an accused. There is one woman called Tahir Daud.”
Other than listening to arguments on behalf of Khalid, the bench heard submissions of counsel showing for RJD youth wing chief and Jamia Millia Islamia scholar Meeran Haider.
Khalid, Imam and several other others have been booked below the Illegal Actions (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and IPC provisions for allegedly being the “masterminds” of the February 2020 riots, which left 53 folks useless and over 700 injured.
The violence erupted through the protests towards the CAA and NRC.
After the dismissal of his bail plea by the excessive court docket in October 2022, Khalid moved court docket for the second time in search of bail within the case.
Khalid, who was arrested by the Delhi police in September, 2020, has assailed a trial court docket order refusing to grant him bail within the case.
Pais knowledgeable the court docket that he was in search of bail on the grounds of lengthy interval of incarceration — over 4 years — with out trial and parity with co-accused Devangana Kalita, Natasha Narwal, Asif Iqbal Tanha and Ishrat Jahan, who had been out on bail.
It was emphasised that Khalid was not even in northeast Delhi when the violence befell, and quite the opposite, he advocated the “Gandhian principle” of non-violence within the speech delivered a number of kilometres away from the capital in Amravati which was labelled as “provocative” later.
“There is no recovery from me or at my instance. There is no physical evidence to show my complicity. There is no allegation of procurement, raising of funds. There is no allegation of terrorist act,” Pais mentioned.
He additional mentioned Khalid was discharged by the trial court docket within the second case towards him in relation to the riots and his interplay within the protest WhatsApp teams was restricted to some cases.
Haider’s counsel sought bail on the grounds of his lengthy incarceration and parity whereas denying allegations of facilitating funds for the violence.
“They conflate protests with riots…There is no recovery of any physical weapons or any other device (from me),” the lawyer argued.
Haider was arrested on April 1, 2020.
In addition to these two bail pleas filed this 12 months, co-accused Sharjeel Imam’s bail plea is pending in excessive court docket since 2022, and had been heard by completely different benches from time-to-time.
The matter can be heard on December 12.
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