New Delhi, (Samajweekly) Opposing the appeal filed by JNU scholar-activist Umar Khalid for denying bail to him, the Delhi Police on Tuesday argued that the trial court rightly dismissed his bail application by a well-reasoned order.
In its reply, the Delhi Police said the Appellant before the Trial Court raised dogmatic arguments seeking to conduct a mini-trial at the stage of deciding the bail application and to view the Appellant’s role in isolation in the case of conspiracy which is impermissible in law.
The Trial Court rightly dismissed the bail application of the Appellant by a well-reasoned order dealing with each and every speculative argument raised by the Appellant.
At the cost of repetition, it is humbly submitted that the impugned order suffers from no illegality which merits interference by this Court, the Delhi Police submitted.
On March 24, a Delhi court dismissed the bail application of former JNU student-activist Umar Khalid in a case related to the alleged “larger conspiracy” behind the Delhi riots.
Denying bail, the court observed that the contention that he is a researcher and his bent of mind can be assessed from his doctoral thesis on welfare aspects of tribals of Jharkhand and other writings is not a relevant consideration while deciding the bail application.
In the order, the court held that if the bent of mind is to be assessed in this manner, then the co-accused Sharjeel Imam has written a thesis on riots but any thesis or research work done by any accused, by itself, cannot be a ground for assessing his bent of mind. A bail application must be decided on facts presented in the charge sheet, it said.
The court said it agreed with counsel that there are some inconsistencies in the statements of some protected witnesses, however, a finding has to be given on a cumulative reading of statements of all the witnesses and other events presented in the charge sheet.
