Challenging the Delhi High Court order granting bail to the student activists - Asif Iqbal Tanha, Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal involved in a case that has been called a "larger conspiracy" relating to the northeast Delhi riots last year in January, the Delhi Police has moved to the Supreme Court against the order.
The Delhi police have filed an appeal in the apex court that killed 53 people and injured more than 400.
Questioning the idea chosen by the HC, the police said that the three verdicts granting bail to the three accused students, Tanha, Kalita and Narwal were "without any foundation and appears to be based more on the social media narrative than the evidence gathered and elaborated in the charge sheet".
In its appeal, the Delhi police argued, "Unfortunately, contrary to the evidence on record and the detailed oral and written submission made/filed, the High Court has decided the case in hand on a pre-conceived and a completely erroneous illusion, as if, the present case was a simply a case of protest by students.”
The police appeal alleged that the Delhi High Court has only carried a mini-trial and recorded unreasonable findings which are opposite to the police records. “The arguments made during the hearing of the case under Sections 15,17 and 18 of the UAPA was prima facie not made out against the accused".
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The HC has completely lost sight of the evidence and statements, rejecting the evidence the police alleged noting that the incident was “clearly made out a sinister plot of mass-scale riots being hatched by the three accused along with other co-conspirators"
The HC bench consisting of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Anup Jairam Bhambhani while granting bail to the three riots accused said: "We are constrained to express, that it seems, that in its anxiety to suppress dissent, in the mind of the State, the line between the constitutionally guaranteed right to protest and terrorist activity seems to be getting somewhat blurred. If this mindset gains traction, it would be a sad day for democracy."
Opposing the court’s remake, the police claimed that this is an "unfounded and perverse insinuation" that the riots that happened in the national capital last year a case relating to it were registered by the government to suppress dissent.
In its hearing, the HC noted that the UAPA provisions can only be employed to deal with matters that can have an extreme impact on the security of the country, however, the police counter it as "an irrelevant consideration to granting bail to the accused".
"Secondly, it will have far-reaching consequences for cases investigated by NIA and other investigating agencies. The impugned order is thus unsustainable in law and deserves to stay," the police claimed.
Through an "erroneous interpretation," the HC has diluted the outlines of the UAPA that can have larger consequences, the police claimed, adding that it will influence all the cases registered by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) under the provisions of UAPA.
Narwal, Kalita and Tanha in May last year were arrested for having been involved in the northeast Delhi riots conspiracy case and later, were accused under the UAPA.
Also Read: Delhi riots: HC grants bail to Devangana Kalita, Natasha Narwal & Asif Iqbal Tanha in UAPA case
Narwal and Kalita are JNU students locked in Tihar Jail, while Tanha, a Jamia Millia Islamia student, is out on a two-week interim custody bail to appear for his university exams.