New Delhi: Student activist and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) scholar Umar Khalid on Wednesday (February 14) withdrew his bail plea in the Supreme Court, in connection with the Delhi riots larger conspiracy case.
Through his lawyer Kapil Sibal, he submitted that “he will try his luck” at a lower court, citing a “change in circumstances”.
“Bail matter we wish to withdraw. There has been a change in circumstances, we will try our luck in the trial court,” Khalid’s lawyer Kapil Sibal was quoted as saying to the court by LiveLaw.
The apex court bench of Justices Bela Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal dismissed Khalid’s petition as withdrawn.
Without elaborating on the “change in circumstances”, Khalid’s father S.Q.R. Ilyas, while speaking to The Wire, cited the long adjournments in the bail plea.
“Since May 2023, there have been several adjournments. We were assessing that this is a lengthy procedure and the circumstances have changed. So, we decided to move the trial court again, and hope for an early judgment. So we will try our luck there now,” he said.
Khalid was arrested in September 2020, under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), in connection with a case related to the North-East Delhi communal violence that erupted in February that year.
He made the submission on Wednesday, while the bench was hearing his special leave petition, challenging the Delhi high court’s decision to deny him bail in October 2022.
The high court bench, comprising Justices Sidharth Mridul and Rajnesh Bhatnagar, while rejecting his bail plea, had held that the prosecution’s case and the chargesheet make for a prima facie case against Khalid, who is accused of criminal conspiracy under the UAPA.
Sibal told the court that he will argue the separate writ petition filed by Khalid challenging the constitutionality of the UAPA provisions.
Also read: ‘Witness May Have Been Tutored’, ‘Callous Probe’: How the 2020 Delhi Riots Cases Have Evolved
Khalid, who has been lodged in jail since September 14, 2020, has been incarcerated without any substantive bail hearings. Along with UAPA, he has been charged with sedition and 18 other sections of the Indian Penal Code, including murder and attempt to murder.
Two months after his arrest, the Delhi high court took cognizance of the chargesheet filed against him under FIR59/2020, along with JNU scholar Sharjeel Imam, who is accused of conspiring and instigating the riots that took place in February that year in Northeast Delhi.
Earlier in October 2020, Khalid was also charged under FIR 101/2020 that related to vandalism and arson during the riots in Khajuri Khas.
In April 2021, Khalid was granted bail by a sessions court in Delhi, filed under FIR 101/2020, but continued to be incarcerated due to the charges against him under FIR 59/2020.
Under FIR 59/2020, Khalid has been charged for various offences, including rioting, murder and unlawful assembly as well as sections of the UAPA and the Arms Act, 1959. He is also facing charges under sedition, and promoting enmity between groups.
After eight months of hearings, in March 2022, a Delhi sessions court denied him bail. Khalid appealed this decision in the Delhi high court the following month.
The high court subsequently ordered that the bail plea be heard regularly from May 23, so that the hearings close before the the Delhi high court breaks for summer vacation.
The hearings were then adjourned on June 4, 2022, as the court went for summer vacation till July 4.
On October 18, 2022, the Delhi high court rejected his bail plea.
A month later, on November 18, Khalid moved the Karkardooma court seeking a two-week interim bail to attend his sister’s marriage ceremony.
On December 3, 2022 the Karkardooma court acquitted Khalid in a ‘stone pelting’ case related to the Delhi riots, but continued to detain him in connection with the ‘larger conspiracy’ around the riots. On December 12 of that year, he was granted interim bail.
Also read: Umar Khalid, the Historian: His Continued Imprisonment Is a Loss to the Academic World
On April 6, 2023, Khalid filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court, appealing against the Delhi high court’s October 2022 order, denying him bail, which he has now withdrawn on Wednesday.
On May 18, 2023, a Supreme Court bench, comprising Justices A.S. Bopanna and Hima Kohli, issued a notice to the Delhi government and sought a response to Khalid’s petition within six weeks.
However, since then Khalid’s bail plea has been rescheduled 14 times.