Khalid files fresh bail plea after cops object

NEW DELHI: Former Jawaharlal Nehru University student Umar Khalid, an accused in the northeast Delhi riots conspiracy case, withdrew his bail plea and filed a fresh one after the city police raised objections on technical grounds, a Delhi court was informed on Monday.

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 one under Section 437.

Special public prosecutor Amit Prasad, representing the police, objected to the fresh plea and said, “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 the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and so exercises powers that are before the court of magistrate within the ambit of Section 437 of the CRPC.

ASJ Rawat sought the police reply on the fresh bail application and posted the matter for hearing 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.