Delhi Riots Case: SC To Hear Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, Gulfisha Fatima's Bail Pleas On Friday

Activists Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and Gulfisha Fatima's bail pleas will be heard by the Supreme Court on Friday. The hearing comes after they challenged the Delhi High Court's rejection of their petitions.

A bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and N V Anjaria is likely to hear the pleas of the activists.

Earlier, the Delhi HC ruled against the activists' bail pleas on Sept. 2, as a result, they failed to obtain reprieve from the UAPA case surrounding the alleged "conspiracy" in the February 2020 Delhi riots.

The prosecution vehemently opposed the bail pleas, alleging that the 2020 riots were not spontaneous, but rather an intricately planned conspiracy orchestrated with a foul motive. They called it a "well-thought-out conspiracy", which was planned in advance with a "sinister motive"

Khalid was arrested in September 2020 and has been in jail since then while Sharjeel Imam was taken under arrest on Aug. 25, 2020.

While challenging the trial court orders refusing bail, Imam, Khalid and others cited their long incarceration and parity with other co-accused who were granted bail.

The trial court had first rejected his plea in March 2022, post which he filed an appeal in the high court, where his plea again faced rejection.

The riots in February 2020 had erupted amid protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which was seen by the protesters as a precursor to a nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise. The communal violence claimed the lives of 53 people and injured over 700.