Delhi Riots | 'If This Was An Ordinary Case Without UAPA, Most Courts Would've Thrown Out Evidence': Sr. Adv Rebecca John Argues For Khalid Saifi's Bail

Seeking bail in the case alleging larger conspiracy behind the 2020 Northeast Delhi riots, United Against Hate member Khalid Saifi on Monday argued before the Delhi High Court that if it were an ordinary case, most courts would have thrown out the evidence.

The submission was made by Senior Advocate Rebecca M. John on behalf of Saifi before the special bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Rajnish Bhatnagar during the hearing of his bail plea.

"If this was an ordinary case without UAPA, I suspect most courts would have thrown out this evidence because what is this realisation that he [witness] has post the event and when he is confronted by an investigating agency. It is nothing but opinion evidence which cannot be given any credence. He is not a witness to anything. He has realised something post facto. It is my respectful submission that this is nothing but an attempt by the prosecution to fill up pages and create prejudice ... he is neither giving statement nor is he saying anything which will lead to this magical realisation after I am arrested," John argued, while making submissions regarding a witness' statement who blamed Saifi and others for the protests and claimed they gave "provocative speeches" before the riots.

John submitted that no provocative speech of Khalid Saifi is on record. "On the contrary, they have relied on four video clips which are benign and most unprovocative," she said.

Referring to a witness statement of 'Saturn' regarding the alleged meeting of Khalid Saifi and co-accused Umar Khalid and Tahir Hussain "at the PFI Office, Shaheen Bagh", John said the witness does not say anything about what happened there. "He only says these three people were seen going into an office. Whether it was PFI Office or something else is also contradicted in his multiple submissions," she submitted.

John said Saifi is also an accused in FIR 101/2020 - which is related to burning of a parking lot in Chand Bagh, where the same statement was sought to be used against Saifi but the court granted him bail. Reading portions of the order, John submitted that the trial court in the bail order had questioned the "lofty claim of conspiracy" and called it an insignificant piece of evidence.

"The only change in FIR 59/2020, he [witness] identifies the building miraculously as some PFI building. Even in FIR 59/2020, he does not talk about the contents of the meeting. While the trial court assessed the same evidence de hors of the hype of the UAPA and came to a logical conclusion 'so what if three of them met together, where is the contents of the meeting. Where does it say that the conspiracy was hatched'. Without the pressures of UAPA, a court was able to give that finding but the minute you impose UAPA on me, then you give a finding as was given by the learned trial court [in the order denying bail to Saifi] as though this was great evidence of conspiracy. At the highest it can be said that protected witness Saturn .. has made a statement that these three individuals went into the building ... so what," argued John.

John said the evidence is not worth the paper on which it is written. "It does not give any incriminating circumstance except for the fact that three individuals met at a particular place at a particular time. So the same witness disregarded by another court in another case filed by the police - emanating from the same riots, is now treated as very very important evidence in this particular case," she said.

Referring to the statement given by a protected witness 'Jupiter', John submitted that he made no allegation against Saifi in the first statement. In the supplementary statement, John said the witness talked about a meeting at Gandhi Peace Foundation.

"He does not make any allegation against me other than I attended the meeting. It was a public meeting, not held in secrecy. Any member of the public could have attended them. There is no role attributed to me," John argued.

Commenting on the police's claim that women were "used" when they were put at the front of protest sites during the agitation against Citizenship Amendment Act, John said, "this constantly saying women were put as fronts. I take strong objection. As if the women have no agency to protest in this country. As if we need men to tell us to 'go in front and protest against the police action or State action'. This is a terribly problematic remark which appears throughout the chargesheet that auratun ko aage bitha diya, as if they are brainless women who don't know what they were fighting for."

John also said that police have taken messages posted on WhatsApp out of context and used them selectively against accused in the case. "All of us are members of various WhatsApp groups including office groups. Comments are made but if you start examining them like this without a context and throwing people into jail, invoking UAPA no less, then we have a problem here," she argued. 

The arguments in the case will continue tomorrow.