[Delhi Riots 2020] High Court Special Bench reserves order in Khalid Saifi’s bail plea

The Delhi High Court on Monday reserved order in an appeal filed by the 2020 Delhi riots accused Khalid Saifi. He has been denied bail by the Trial Court.

A special bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Rajnish Bhatnagar was hearing appeals filed by the 2020 Delhi riots accused Khalid Saifi and others against the rejection of their bail applications by the trial Court.

During the hearing, Senior Advocate Rebecca John appearing for Saifi challenged the precedents laid down by SPP, wherein he referred to trial court judgments, she argued that they could not be placed before a co-ordinate bench of the High Court and that all six precedents did not further her arguments.

John argued that the conversation referred to by SPP was "hearsay evidence", and wasn't a chat between Saifi and Sharjeel Imam. It is between a non-charge sheeted person and Sharjeel Imam, she claimed. “How am I (Saifi) responsible for someone else's conversation?”, she argued. Furthermore, she argued that Saifi wasn’t discharged by the Trial court in another FIR, on a technical basis.

On the contention that Saifi had made provocative speeches, she argued that there was “nothing provocative” in the 4 videos, out of which, two were interviews, one was a FB live event and another was a short speech at Jamia University.

Conclusively, John argued that “evidence against Khalid Saifi was Dubious and was all an imagination”, and that he deserves to be granted bail.

Taking note of the submissions, the special bench reserved orders in the bail plea.

On December 8, SPP Amit Prasad concluded his arguments in the case, wherein he contended that every minute detail is there and there is no infirmity and demonstrated through statements of witnesses that the police had not concealed facts.

On December 7, Senior Advocate Rebecca John argued that Khalid Saifi has not committed any violence, rather he himself is a victim of custodial violence. John alleged that the whole case setup was based on 2-3 men sitting in a special cell, who had given their opinion on the statements. She argued that opinions cannot be held as evidence. She contended that "Bail is a Rule! Jail is an Exception!" and that "the trial court failed to follow it".

Earlier, John had argued that the baseless remark used everywhere is that "Aurton ko aage baetha diya" (women were asked to sit in the front) during the protests as if they didn't have a mind of their own.

Trial Court Order

Earlier Trial Court's Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat dismissed Saifi's bail plea stating that the allegations against him seemed prima facie true. 

Senior Advocate Rebecca John had argued that Khalid Saifi was falsely implicated and that the entire case of the prosecution remained unsubstantiated and devoid of evidence. She had submitted that the prosecution relied on a WhatsApp Group called "DPSG". However, Khalid Saifi's participation in the said group was only peripheral and could not be used as evidence of any criminal conspiracy. 

SPP Amit Prasad had submitted that Khalid Saifi was a member of the WhatsApp Group DPSG, CAB Team, and United Against Hate (UAH) Okhla. He had also alleged that Khalid attended a meeting at Jangpura, Delhi which was also attended by Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, Meeran Haider, and others. 

Allegedly, Khalid Saifi also attended the meeting on December 26, 2019, at Lodhi Colony after which DPSG was created on December 28, 2019. 

Case Title: Abdul Khalid Saifi @ Khalid v. State [Crl 210/2022]