The Delhi High Court on Friday asked the Delhi Police to respond to activist Sharjeel Imam’s request for bail, who is in jail under the UAPA in a case alleging his involvement in a larger conspiracy behind the February 2020 Delhi riots.
A bench consisting of Justices Prathiba M. Singh and Vikas Mahajan has released a notice on Imam’s appeal against the trial court’s July order, which rejected Imam’s second regular bail application. The bench ordered police to take two weeks to file its response and scheduled the next hearing for August 27.
Advocate Talib Mustafa, representing Imam, said that the trial court had failed to consider the changes that took place ahead of the Supreme Court’s refusal to give bail to Imam in January. Mustafa argued that the trial has been at a standstill for over six months without charges.
Meantime, Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju, who appeared on behalf of the Delhi police, submitted that the Supreme Court had considered the delay in the proceedings before denying relief to the accused.
Raju said that the police would file a response and informed the court that arguments on the framing of charges had taken place for over 200 days due to the number of accused persons in the matter.
Imam was arrested on August 25, 2020, and booked under the UAPA for allegedly playing a key role in the February 2020 northeast Delhi riots, which killed 53 people and injured more than 700 others.
Imam has been in jail since his arrest in January 2020.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court refused to grant him bail, saying that the prosecution’s material indicated a prima facie case against him under the UAPA.
In May, another Supreme Court bench observed that bail should be the norm and jail should be an exception, even in UAPA cases. It also expressed concerns over the earlier order denying bail to Imam and Umar Khalid in the Delhi riots case.
After this, Imam approached the sessions court for bail again, but his plea was rejected on July 4. He then challenged the order before the High Court.
Khalid also filed a similar bail plea, which was rejected along with Imam’s.
