Delhi riots: Umar Khalid withdraws bail plea after police objects to maintainability, files fresh appeal

Former JNU student leader Umar Khalid, arrested under stringent anti-terror law UAPA in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case, has withdrawn his bail application and filed a fresh one after the city police objected to its maintainability.

Senior advocate Trideep Pais, appearing for Khalid, told Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat that the application seeking bail under section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) has been substituted with the one under section 437 after the police objected to it.

Special Public Prosecutor Amit Prasad, representing the police, objected to the fresh plea that purportedly accused the prosecution of adopting dilatory tactic and called it “not fair”.

In the interim application you have filed, you have made certain allegations that the objections taken by the prosecution are dilatory tactics. Therefore, to paint the prosecution by saying that it is dilatory tactics is not fair, the prosecutor said.

The fresh application was filed after Prasad submitted that the court hearing the plea is a special court designated under UAPA Act and therefore exercises all powers that are before the Court of Magistrate within the rigours of section 437 of CrPC.

ASJ Rawat sought the police reply on the fresh bail application and posted the matter to September 8.

In the last hearing on the bail plea on September 3, Khalid told the court that the charge sheet in the case has made hyperbolic allegations without any factual basis and reads like a script from a web series and news channels.

Delhi Police had earlier said the bail plea had no merit and that it will demonstrate the prima facie case against him before the court by referring to the charge sheet filed in the case.

Khalid, along with several others, has been booked under the anti-terror law in the case. They are accused of being the “masterminds” of the February 2020 violence, which had left 53 people dead and over 700 injured. He has sought bail in the case.

(Cover: Former JNU student Umar Khalid addresses the audience during Young India March, on March 3, 2020 in New Delhi, India. (Photo by Vipin Kumar/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)