The Delhi Police told the Supreme Court on Monday that activist Umar Khalid cannot claim the same footing as co-accused Devangana Kalita, Natasha Narwal and Asif Iqbal Tanha in the larger conspiracy case linked to the 2020 Delhi violence. According to Live Law, the police argued that the Delhi High Court’s 2021 bail ruling for the three activists stemmed from a flawed reading of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
Appearing for the police, Additional Solicitor General SV Raju said the High Court had incorrectly concluded that the UAPA applied only to matters touching upon the “defence of India”, and this misunderstanding effectively diluted the strict bail restrictions that Parliament had built into Section 43D(5). By treating the provision as irrelevant, the High Court, he said, had ignored the statutory bar that makes bail difficult when allegations under the Act appear prima facie credible.
Raju submitted that the court further erred by invoking Section 439 of the Criminal Procedure Code— which gives High Courts broader freedom to grant bail— instead of Section 437, which is meant to be applied more cautiously in cases involving grave offences. He added that the Supreme Court did not overturn the earlier bail orders because cancelling bail requires a higher threshold, not because the reasoning was sound.
He insisted that Khalid cannot rely on the concept of parity when the initial bail order itself rested on an erroneous interpretation. “A benefit extended on a misreading of law cannot become the basis for another claim of bail,” he said, noting that the Supreme Court had already clarified that the earlier bail ruling for Kalita, Narwal and Tanha could not be treated as precedent. Bar and Bench reported him as saying that Khalid had used the parity argument before and that the courts had rejected it, adding that it cannot be revived without fresh circumstances.
Khalid and four others—Sharjeel Imam, Gulshifa Fatima, Meeran Haider and Shifa Ur Rehman—moved the Supreme Court after their bail pleas were dismissed by the High Court on September 2. All five were arrested between January and September 2020 in the aftermath of the communal violence that swept North East Delhi during protests around the Citizenship Amendment Act. The clashes claimed 53 lives, the majority of them Muslims, and left hundreds injured. They face charges under the UAPA along with the Arms Act, the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act and multiple IPC provisions.
The Delhi Police, in an affidavit filed on October 30, opposed the bail pleas, alleging that the accused were part of a coordinated “regime change operation” disguised as civil protest. The affidavit claimed that Khalid acted as the principal conspirator and guided Sharjeel Imam in orchestrating the initial phase of the violence.
