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A Special Bench of the Delhi High Court, on Monday, continued hearing the bail plea challenging the impugned order denying bail to UAPA accused Umar Khalid. The court expressed concern over the amount of time the accused had taken to complete its arguments, remarking that it could not continue to assemble on a daily basis, especially for the accused.

“We are hearing this matter on a daily basis. We know your client is in custody but so are so many others! they are in preventive custody! We have been adjourning their matters on a daily basis! Everyday! We cant do this on a daily basis.”

Justice Mridul further expressed concern over the fact that the prosecution hadn’t even begun its arguments and that the court could not give preferential treatment to the accused.

“The prosecution hasn’t even begun yet! We have to give them the same amount of time we give you to respond to the extensive arguments raised by you. They haven’t even begun Mr. Pais!” Court said.

On Monday

Senior Advocate Trideep Pais and Sanya Kumar, appearing for the accused, Umar Khalid, continued their arguments on how the chargesheet filed by the police was a complete fabrication.

Kumar argued that the alleged conspiratorial meeting held at Seelampur was not a “secret”, as alleged in the chargesheet. A statement of witness “Sierra”, who was a person supplying tea and snacks in all the meetings, was read out to show that he has never referred to the meeting as “secret”. Moreover, statements of other witnesses were also read out to show that all the statements seemed unnaturally identical in wording, punctuation, etc. Statements of another witness, namely “Echo”, were also argued to be hearsay.

However, the court refused to be bogged down in the scrutiny of the witness statements at the stage of bail.

“All this will be seen at the time of trial. Not at the stage of bail hearing”, remarked Justice Rajnish Bhatnagar.

Pais sought to argue that many parts of the chargesheet are fabricated as it stated that the police learnt of the secret meeting on 28th august. However, he argued that various witnesses had spoken about the said meeting in as far back as April and that the same was evident through their statements, recorded in the chargesheet.

Moreover, Pais also argued that the chargesheet relied upon a photograph of the “secret” meeting, which the police pulled from the Facebook profile of one Syed Ibrahim. Pais argued that had the meeting been such a secret, a photograph of the same would not have been available on facebook for the world to see.

The court, however, refused to indulge the arguments advanced by the accused.

“The point is whether a meeting was held or not? We have to look at the facts. the fact is there is a photo. The photo shows a meeting was held. We can’t at this stage look at whether meeting was “secret” or “conspiratorial”, remarked Justice Mridul.

“Some facts hide in plain sight! who is to say a conspiratorial meeting cant be held in a park! But we are not to look at any such facts. Whatever statements have been made by the witness, how much scrutiny can we put them through?” he added.

Pais responded by citing the judgement of the Supreme Court in the case of “National Investigation Agency vs Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali”, which has been cited by Pais on multiple occasions in previous hearings. The court inquired as to how long Pais would take to finish their arguments and expressed concern over the amount of time the accused had already taken.

Case Title: Umar Khalid v. State