“We don’t consider in unnecessarily conserving individuals behind the bars,” the Supreme Court observed on Tuesday while hearing the pleas filed by the Delhi Police against the bail granted to three student activists in a case of the 2020 North East Delhi riots.
A bench headed by Justice S K Kaul said spending hours hearing the bail petitions in the case was a “complete wastage” of time of the Delhi High Court.
The bench, additionally comprising Justices A S Oka and J B Pardiwala, was listening to the pleas filed by the police difficult the Delhi High Court’s June 15, 2021 verdicts granting bail to activists Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita and Asif Iqbal Tanha in the case associated to communal violence through the protests towards the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
At the outset, advocate Rajat Nair, showing for police, requested the bench to submit the petitions for listening to after two weeks, saying Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who’s main him, is arguing earlier than a Constitution bench in a separate matter.
“We have a case that bail granted by the excessive courtroom must be cancelled,” he said.
The bench, while noting that the Solicitor General is arguing in a matter before a Constitution bench, posted the pleas for hearing on January 31.
The apex court observed that in bail matters, the moment one goes into the merits of the case, the hearing gets prolonged.
One of the advocates, appearing for the accused, said in this matter, the police had argued on the merits before the high court.
Nair said the police had only answered the question put by the high court as to whether the act committed by the accused is an act of terror or not.
“You have spent hours in bail matters. It is complete wastage of time of the high court. You want a full trial in bail matters? This I don’t understand,” Justice Kaul noticed.
During the listening to in the matter on July 2021, the apex courtroom had indicated its reluctance to contemplate the side of cancellation of bail granted to the three activists, who have been booked beneath the provisions of the stringent anti-terror legislation — Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
It had termed as troubling that the bail petitions have been being argued at size debating the provisons of the legislation.
The apex courtroom had earlier expressed its displeasure over the excessive courtroom discussing all the anti-terror legislation UAPA in a bail matter and made it clear that the judgements shall not be handled as a precedent and will not be relied upon by any of the events in any of the proceedings.
The prime courtroom, which had agreed to listen to the appeals filed by police and issued notices to the three, had refused to remain the excessive courtroom verdicts.
It had additionally clarified that the discharge of the three activists on bail was not being interfered with at this stage.
Earlier, Mehta had argued that 53 individuals had died and over 700 have been injured through the riots which happened at a time when the then US president and different dignitaries have been in the nationwide capital.
The excessive courtroom had mentioned though the definition of a ‘terrorist act’ in part 15 of the UAPA is “huge and considerably imprecise”, it must partake the essential character of terrorism and that the phrase ‘terrorist act’ cannot be permitted to be applied in a “cavalier manner” to prison acts that squarely fall beneath the purview of the Indian Penal Code.
The Delhi Police had assailed the HC verdicts, saying the interpretation by the excessive courtroom will weaken the prosecution in terror instances.
The excessive courtroom had granted them bail, saying in an anxiousness to suppress dissent the State has blurred the road between the suitable to protest and terrorist exercise, and if such a mindset good points traction, it will be a “unhappy day for democracy”.
Kalita, Narwal and Tanha are accused in four, three and two cases related to the communal riots that broke out on February 24, 2020.
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