The court says earlier findings remain valid and holds that the accused face a prima facie case under UAPA
NEW DELHI – A Delhi court on Thursday rejected the regular bail pleas of former Aam Aadmi Party councillor and ex-MCD member Tahir Hussain, along with Athar Khan and Salim Malik alias Munna, in a case linked to the 2020 north-east Delhi riots. The court said the pleas lacked merit and that the case was not fit for bail at this stage.
The order was passed by Additional Sessions Judge Sameer Bajpai of the Karkardooma Courts. All three accused are facing trial in an alleged conspiracy case connected to the riots and have been charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
Rejecting the pleas, the judge observed that the bar under UAPA applied. “In view of the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, this court does not find any substance in the bail applications, and the same are dismissed,” the court said.
The defence had referred to a recent Supreme Court order granting bail to five co-accused in the same case. On 5 January, the apex court granted bail to some of the accused, while rejecting the bail pleas of former JNU student leaders Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam.
Addressing this point, the trial court said it could not take a different view at this stage. In an order dated 29 January, the judge noted, “Even after the order of the Supreme Court in respect of some co-accused persons, once this court has already formed an opinion that a prima facie case exists against the applicant, no different opinion can be formed by reviewing the earlier order.”
The court added that it found no grounds to reconsider its earlier view in Tahir Hussain’s case. “This court does not find any substance in the bail application of Tahir and others, and therefore the same stands dismissed,” the judge said.
Earlier, on 30 March 2024, the same court had dismissed Tahir Hussain’s bail plea, holding that the accusations against him appeared to be true at first glance. In that order, the court had stated, “This court has already observed that a prima facie case is made out against the applicant, and there is a statutory bar under Section 43D (5) of the UAPA. Therefore, the case of the applicant is not fit for the grant of bail.”
The case relates to the violence that broke out in parts of north-east Delhi in February 2020 during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC). The riots left around 56 people dead and hundreds injured, with large-scale damage to homes, shops and places of worship, many of them in Muslim-majority localities.
Tahir Hussain, Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita, Asif Iqbal Tanha, Ishrat Jahan, Safoora Zargar and several others have been named as accused in the case. Charge-sheets have been filed against them under sections of the Indian Penal Code and the UAPA.
Families of the accused and civil rights groups have repeatedly raised concerns over prolonged incarceration and delays in trial, arguing that many of those arrested have been in jail for years without a final verdict. The prosecution, on the other hand, maintains that the charges are serious and involve an alleged larger conspiracy.
The trial in the case is still pending, and the court has made it clear that its observations at the bail stage will not affect the final outcome of the case.
