SC allows Delhi riots accused to mark attendance to cops only on Saturday

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to alter the bail condition imposed on the 2020 Delhi riots accused Meeran Haider, restraining him from participating in any programme, addressing gatherings, or circulating posters or banners in any form. The court observed that the judgment “consciously” kept the condition broad rather than restricting it to the case at hand.

However, the bench modified one condition from the January 5 judgment relating to physical attendance before the concerned police station twice a week.

A bench of justices Aravind Kumar and Vipul M Pancholi said, “We will not relax any condition except one,” after Haider’s lawyer, senior advocate Siddharth Agarwal requested the court to consider relaxing three other conditions besides the one the court agreed to.

Agarwal referred specifically to two conditions. One said, “The appellants shall not participate in any programme or address or attend any gathering, rally or meeting, whether physically or virtually till conclusion of the trial.”

The other condition read, “The appellants shall not circulate any post either in electronic form or physical form or circulate any hand bills, posters, banners, etc in any form whatsoever.”

He requested the court to confine these conditions to the present case. The bench shot down the suggestion and said, “It has to be much wider. Consciously we have not said ‘in this case’. We are very clear we will not restrict it.” To that extent, the application moved by Haider was dismissed.

The relief he got pertained to the condition requiring him to appear every Monday and Thursday at the police station. Agarwal informed the court that his client seeks employment and weekdays will not be possible due to working hours. He instead requested the court to make it on a weekend.

The bench allowed him to appear once a week before the Crime Branch police station of the Delhi Police on Saturday and exempted him on two Saturdays falling on October 17 and 24, considering the special circumstance of his marriage in the week beginning October 17.

Additional solicitor general (ASG) SV Raju appearing for the Delhi Police did not object to this change. The bench noted in its order, “Considering the hardship expressed by the petitioner, we are inclined to direct the petitioner to mark his attendance on every Saturday between 10 am and 12 noon before the SHO Crime Branch police station.”

While Agarwal also sought modification of another condition that requires him to remain within Delhi, he said that the same can be considered by the trial court as per the January 5 judgment.

On January 5 judgment, the SC granted bail to Haider and four others— Gulfisha Fatima, Shifa Ur Rehman, Mohammad Saleem Khan and Shadab Ahmed, while turning down the relief to former JNU scholar Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam stating that the duo stands on a “qualitatively different footing” than the rest, both in terms of the prosecution case and the evidence gathered by the police.

The trial in the 2020 Delhi riots case is continuing where the police have invoked offences under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) against the accused.