NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed the pleas by the Delhi Police against the bail granted in June 2021 to three student activists in a case related to the 2020 Northeast Delhi riots, saying they are out on bail for almost two years and it sees no purpose in keeping the matter alive.
A bench of Justice SK Kaul and Ahsanuddin Amanullah, while dismissing the pleas, noted that the accused had been on bail for almost two years. The bench also clarified in the order that it has not gone into the correctness of the Delhi HC’s order of interpreting the provisions of UAPA and said that the same should not be treated as a “precedent” by other courts.
“The impugned order is an extremely elaborate order on bail interpreting provisions of the UAPA Act. In our view, the only issue, which is required to be examined is in the factual scenario whether the accused is entitled to bail or not. While issuing notice, we observed that the impugned judgement shall not be treated as a precedent. The idea was to protect the state against the use of judgment on the enunciation of law in a bail matter. Respondents have been on bail for almost two years. We see no purpose in keeping this matter alive,” the court said in its order. The bench also criticised Delhi Police for its lackadaisical approach in dealing with the matter and seeking adjournments on almost every date of hearing.
“We’ve accommodated you a number of times in this matter. We on January 17 had said that he is a busy man and alternate arrangements will have to be made. No, we will not give you time, whoever is there argue. Today is a very good day. I’m not recording any statement from anybody,” Justice Kaul had said while reprimanding the counsel who had sought adjournment for Delhi Police.
The activists were released after an order was passed by a high court bench of justices Siddharth Mridul and Anup J Bhambhani. The HC bench had described the charges against them as “hyperbole” and had ruled that it would be “a stretch” to “say that the protest affected the community at large for it to qualify as an act of terror”.
In January 2021, the Supreme Court termed the HC’s order as “surprising” and directed not to treat the same as precedents in any other case or relied upon them in any court proceedings. The bench had said that it was “staying the effect of the HC order” but clarified that the three activists would remain out on bail. The court had opined that the orders required scrutiny in so far as they had sought to interpret the provisions of UAPA and returned a finding on the circumstance for the invocation of the anti-terror law.