Delhi Riots Larger Conspiracy Case: Justice Mridul-led Special Bench Of High Court Says May Transfer Bail Appeals To Roster Bench

Adjourning the bail pleas moved by accused in a case alleging larger conspiracy behind 2020 North-East riots, a special bench of the Delhi High Court on Friday observed that adjudication in the individual appeals was "likely to take a long time".

A special bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Rajnish Bhatnagar will now hear the matter next on November 21 "to take a call" as to how the bail pleas are to be heard in future.

"We are posting these matters on Monday at 2:15 PM. We will have to take a call. This is likely to take a long time…and we would not like to curtail any of the appellants in any manner. If we were to hear all these appeals every Friday….we don't know when we will be able to conclude all these," the bench said.

The special bench, which recently rejected the bail plea of Umar Khalid, is seized of the pleas filed by other accused persons who are also seeking bail in FIR 59/2020 being probed by Delhi Police's Special Cell.

The other accused who are seeking bail are Sharjeel Imam, Khalid Saifi, Meeran Haider, Gulfisha Fatima, Mohd. Saleem Khan, Shifa ur Rehman and Salim Malik. The batch also includes an appeal filed by the Delhi Police seeking cancellation of bail of Ishrat Jahan.

During the course of hearing today, Justice Siddharth Mridul said that none of the appeals were part heard before the special bench.

"The difficulty is that this is a special bench. We cannot be hearing these bail appeals Friday to Friday.….These matters have been transferred to us from roster bench. Surely we will have to decide if it will be appropriate for us to assemble just to hear these appeals on every succeeding Friday," the bench said.

It added: "What we will do is…tell us on Monday….otherwise we will have to organize our respective roster accordingly. This cannot be done on Friday to Friday."