Delhi riots: Order on Umar Khalid's bail plea deferred again — 3rd time since it was reserved

New Delhi: A Delhi court on Wednesday deferred for today (Thursday) its order on the bail plea of former JNU student Umar Khalid in a case of larger conspiracy in connection with Delhi riots in February 2020.

Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat, who was scheduled to pronounce the order Wednesday, posted the matter for Thursday, saying it was not ready.

The court had reserved the order on March 3 after hearing arguments from the counsel appearing for Khalid and the prosecution. Since then, the court has had to defer the order on his bail plea in the case three times, including the deferment on Wednesday.

The first time it was deferred when the counsel for the accused had filed paperwork a day before the order was to be pronounced. The second deferment was because the prosecution was late in replying to the aforementioned submissions. And now, ASJ Rawat on Wednesday said that it was deferring the order because the order was currently "under corrections".

During the arguments, the accused had told the court that the prosecution lacked the evidence to prove its case against him and had even argued in detail the statements of witnesses cited by the police —meticulously breaking them down.

Khalid and several others, have been booked under the anti-terror law UAPA in the case for being the "masterminds" of the February 2020 riots, which had left 53 people dead and over 700 injured.

The violence had erupted during the protests against the CAA and the National Register of Citizens.

So far, six people accused in this case have been granted bail — Safoora Zargar, Devangana Kalita, Natasha Narwal, Asif Iqbal Tanha, Faizan Khan, and former Congress councillor Ishrat Jahan. Of these, only Ishrat was able to secure bail from a Sessions court and the rest had to escalate their pleas to the Delhi High Court before being granted the relief.