New Delhi, February 18 The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear a plea challenging a Delhi High Court's order denying bail to an accused in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case.
A bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and Prasanna B Varale issued notice to the Delhi Police seeking its response to the plea filed by the accused, Abdul Khalid Saifi.
During the hearing, the bench observed that the accused cannot claim parity with the Supreme Court's recent verdict granting bail to five co-accused in the case.
"If you are claiming parity based on our judgment, we will immediately say no," the bench told the counsel representing the petitioner.
The bench linked Saifi's plea with another pending petition filed by another accused who had also been denied bail by the high court.
Saifi has challenged the high court's September 2 verdict last year, which refused to grant him bail in the case.
On January 5, observing that reasonable grounds exist for believing that the allegations against Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam were prima facie true, the Supreme Court refused to grant them bail in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case, but granted relief to five others, saying that all the accused do not stand on the same footing.
Activists Gulfisha Fatima, Meeran Haider, Shifa Ur Rehman, Mohd Saleem Khan, and Shadab Ahmad were granted bail by the apex court, which imposed 11 conditions and said that any misuse of liberty would result in cancellation of bail.
The February 2020 riots in northeast Delhi erupted during protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC), leaving 53 people dead and more than 700 injured.
Khalid, Imam, and others were booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and provisions of the Indian Penal Code for allegedly being the "masterminds" of the riots. The accused have denied the allegations.
