Police reply sought on Umar ‘leak’ plea
NEW DELHI: A court here on Thursday sought reply from the police as to how the copy of a supplementary charge sheet, filed against former JNU student leader Umar Khalid in a north-east Delhi riots case, was allegedly leaked to the media even before the accused or his counsel got it.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Dinesh Kumar directed Delhi Police to file the reply by January 14 on how the charge sheet was allegedly leaked to the media before the court took cognisance of it.
Khalid’s plea said that the allegations in the supplementary charge sheet and its dissemination by the media were allegedly “false” and “malicious” and compromised his right to a fair trial.
He had earlier alleged that the media was conducting a “vicious media campaign” against him and sought the court’s directions to the police on how the media got the charge sheet even before he or his counsel got it.
During Thursday’s hearing,
Khalid said: “As I had mentioned earlier, even before the charge sheet was supplied to me, it was already in the public domain and media was reporting from it. I got to know from news reports that the charge sheet made mention of a disclosure statement by me and based on that so-called disclosure statement, media had reported that I had admitted my role.”
He further said that the charge sheets mentioned certain videos which have not been supplied to him.
To this, the judge asked his counsel to make a list of all the deficient documents and inform the court on the next date of hearing.