Delhi HC reserved its judgment on Umar Khalid's bail plea

Case: Umar Khalid v State

Bench: Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Rajnish Bhatnagar 

The Delhi High Court reserved its judgment on Umar Khalid's bail plea after hearing 20 days of argument. The Court allowed activist Umar Khalid's bail plea, after more than four months after Khalid filed an appeal seeking bail in the Delhi riots conspiracy case.

FACTS

Khalid was arrested in September 2020 and charged with criminal conspiracy, rioting, unlawful assembly as well as several sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act by the Delhi Police. Karkardoom court rejected his bail plea in March 2022.

In this present appeal, arguments for bail started in April. During the first hearing, the judges commented that they found his speech at Amravati obnoxious and inciteful. Judges also pointed out that the speech might seem innocuous in isolation, but may have been a bugle call of a larger nature.

The hearings continued through May and the bench composition also changed -- Justice Mridul appointed a different division bench -- the two judges said they would sit almost daily as a special bench in the post-lunch session and complete the hearing. Even though the judges initially intended to finish the arguments before June, the hearings were taking much longer than expected, so they decided to continue after the court vacation. After more than 20 days of hearings, even the bench commented that it seemed like they were hearing an appeal against conviction rather than a bail case.

Summary of arguments in the bail plea:

Senior Advocate Trideep Pais appearing for Khalid argued:

• that the lower court did not give any finding that his speech at Amravati is provocative. Phrases like "sab changa si” in his speech are meant as satire and one cannot be put behind bars for over 500 days because he used the phrase or the word Jumla;

• It was only after the police saw footage of Khalid's speech on Republic TV and News18 that an FIR was filed against him; he was not named in any of the FIRs related to violence during the riots;

• Unlike more stringent statutes such as MCOCA and NDPS, UAPA has a lower threshold for bail;

• A physical manifestation of an agreement between the accused is required to establish conspiracy, but there was no "meeting of minds" between them.

SPP Amit Prasad's arguments:

• Speeches of Khalid and others had common themes of Kashmir and CAA/NRC. The aim was to create a sense of fear among the minority community;

• All the accused were part of groups, met several times, and hatched the conspiracy;

• The effort was to destabilize the country in the international media;

• Khalid was the brains behind the protests and riots;

• The trial court has dealt with every recorded evidence.