The Supreme Court on January 24 rescheduled a bail petition filed by former Jawaharlal Nehru University student leader Umar Khalid despite expressly recording that “no further adjournment shall be granted to either of the parties” in its previous order on January 10.
A Bench led by Justice Bela M. Trivedi reached the case a few minutes before lunch break. Senior advocate C.U. Singh, for the petitioner, said the case concerned bail and he was ready to argued the case. However, Justice Trivedi had to be part of another Bench in the post-lunch session.
Mr. Singh suggested the case be listed on another day, but soon. The Bench fixed the next hearing on January 31 and “high on the board”.
Mr. Khalid has been named in an Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) case linked to the February 2020 Delhi riots. Mr. Khalid has been an undertrial for over three years. The trial court has not framed charges in the case yet. The accused in the case are mostly students and PhD scholars.
He had also filed a separate writ petition questioning the legality of certain sections of the UAPA, especially dealing with bail. This petition had been tagged with others who had similarly challenged the draconian nature of the UAPA. Mr. Khalid’s plea for bail was to be jointly heard with these writ petitions.
However, the journey of the former student leader for a hearing in the Supreme Court has been speckled by a series of adjournments. His case has travelled through different combinations of Benches in 2023.
This story was originally published in thehindu.com. Read the full story here .