New delhi: Former Jawaharlal Nehru University student leader and prominent anti-CAA activist, Umar Khalid on Monday moved a trial court with a plea raising concerns over the "vicious media campaign" launched against him.
In court, when produced, Khalid told Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Dinesh Kumar that the supplementary chargesheet filed against him in one of the north-east Delhi riots cases had surprisingly been leaked to certain sections of the media before the court could supply a copy of it to the
accused.
"Please ask the prosecution and the investigating officer how is it that the media is getting a copy of the charge sheet before the accused is," he said, appearing in court virtually.
"I am saying with absolute dismay that this pattern of media reporting on the charge sheet before the accused get a copy of it, is prejudicial to the trial... The media says that in my confessional statements (disclosure statements) I have admitted to my role in the riots, how does that make sense when I gave it in writing that I had not signed any statement while in police custody on 4 October," Khalid continued.
"I am well aware that these confessional statements are not admissible in court, but there is an obvious pattern of selected disclosure statements being leaked, so keeping that in mind I request you ask the Investigating Officer how this is being leaked again and again. This is affecting my right to a free and fair trial," he said.
After Khalid's lawyers made their submissions regarding a pattern of chargesheet being leaked to the press before the accused is served a copy, the jailed activist said, "I am repeating this, I have already told the court I did not sign any statement. These attempts show that the prosecution is themselves not confident of the evidence against me and want to start a media trial."
Khalid's application was initially submitted in CMM Dinesh Kumar's court on Sunday and came up for hearing on Monday. After hearing the submissions, the court adjourned the hearing in the matter till 2 pm today (Tuesday). "I can not give an order on this today. The application has been listed for tomorrow at 2:00 pm," the CMM said.
Pais argued for Khalid during the hearing that every time a chargesheet is filed, there is immediately a "vicious media campaign" against his client. "Immediately after the charge sheet the media started saying that Umar Khalid had admitted to the riots, to mobilising people, to bring in women as a front, arranged guns etc. However, when you read the same charge sheet you will know that the accused they talk of was not even present in Delhi," he said, according to reports of the proceedings on
Monday.
The lawyers also made a point to note that many media reports citing the supplementary chargesheet in question had not bothered to use terms such as "alleged", following which CMM Kumar observed that many reports had not used "alleged" in their
reportage.