NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday questioned the prolonged incarceration of an accused in the 2020 North-East Delhi riots conspiracy case, asking the police how long a person can be kept in jail when five years have already passed since the violence.
A division bench of Justice Subramonium Prasad and Justice Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar posed the query to Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) Amit Prasad during a hearing on the bail application of Tasleem Ahmed, one of the accused booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in connection with FIR 59/2020.
Appearing for Ahmed, Advocate Mehmood Pracha focused solely on the delay in trial, clarifying that he was not arguing on the merits of the case or seeking bail on the ground of parity with other co-accused who were granted bail earlier.
“My submissions are limited to the fact that trial proceedings have seen extraordinary delay,” he told the court.
Referring to the bail granted to co-accused Devangana Kalita, Natasha Narwal, and Asif Iqbal Tanha in 2021, after they had spent around 14 months in custody, Pracha pointed out that Ahmed, arrested on June 24, 2020, has now completed five years in jail. He also argued that Ahmed has never sought any adjournment, unlike others. “He has not taken a single day’s adjournment. Not a single day’s delay is attributable to him. In fact, he even refrained from pressing his Section 207 CrPC application and has depleted his defence,” Pracha submitted.
He further informed the bench that while only five co-accused have completed their arguments on charge since October last year, Ahmed finished his arguments in just one day, within 10–15 minutes.
Taking note of these submissions, the bench asked SPP Prasad, “It’s been five years. Arguments on charge are still pending. In such cases involving 700 witnesses, for how long can someone be kept in custody?”
In response, Prasad argued that the delay cannot be attributed to the prosecution and cited multiple trial court orders to show that adjournments were often taken by the accused. The court also sought clarification on whether the co-accused were granted bail solely on the ground of delay in trial. Pracha clarified that he was now restricting his plea to delay in trial alone, withdrawing his arguments based on parity and the total number of witnesses.
Prasad submitted that Ahmed’s earlier bail plea had been dismissed by the trial court and was never challenged, which meant the order had attained finality.