The Delhi High Court has denied bail to Salim Malik alias Munna in the police’s ‘larger conspiracy case’ pertaining to the north east Delhi riots in 2020. A division bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Manoj Jain in its April 22 (Monday) order said that witness statements make it apparent that the accused took an ‘active part’ in ‘hatching conspiracy’ to commit the riots.
Malik and several others were booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for allegedly being the ‘masterminds’ of the February 2020 riots, which left 53 people dead and over 700 injured. The riots erupted during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in the city.
The bench also took note of a statement given by ‘protected witness’ called ‘Radium’ who had said that he attended a meeting at Chand Bagh in the evening of February 23, 2020, where it was discussed that ‘since the area CCTV cameras were installed, the riots could not be carried out at the intended scale’ wherein the appellant was made one of the person’s ‘incharge to either destroy the CCTV or to cover those’ which he did.
The bench observed that though the citizens of this country have the ‘right to protest’, it has to be in a ‘peaceful manner’ without resorting to violence. It said that in the meetings which took place in February 2020 at Chand Bagh which was attended by Malik along with other accused, the aspects related to ‘riot-like violence and burning of Delhi , were openly discussed which is not acceptable in any democratic nation’.
The bench also observed that the riots that took place in the national capital four years ago were a ‘result of deep-rooted conspiracy’, where Malik was a ‘co-conspirator’. The court said that the ‘objective of the conspirators’ was to ‘escalate protests to chakka jam’ and once the crowd in large numbers was mobilised, to ‘lead and incite’ them against the police and others. It added that ‘in order to give a secular look secular names or Hindu names’ were given to protest sites.
Taking note of the ‘factual matrix’ of the case and witness statements recorded during investigation, the court said that the accusations made against the appellant ‘make out a ‘prima facie true’ case against him’ and hence the embargo created under Section 43-D(5) of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, ‘automatically gets attracted’.
As per this section, a person accused of offences–terrorist activities and those pertaining to proceeds of terrorism, can be released on bail, unless the Public Prosecutor ‘has been given an opportunity’ of being heard on the accused’s bail plea. The proviso to the section states that such accused person shall not be released on bail if the court, after perusing the case diary or the police officer’s report (after investigation is completed), feels that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accusation is ‘prima facie true’.
The bench further said that at the ‘stage of consideration of bail in UAPA’, the court is not required to do ‘extensive or comprehensive evaluation of the evidence and is required to form opinion on the basis of broad probabilities’. It said that it is required to assess whether there are ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe that the accusation made against any such accused are ‘prima facie true’ or not.
While dismissing Malik’s bail plea, the bench however said that the observations in the order should not be construed as an expression on the merits of the case and the trial court, while ‘deciding the charges’, shall not be influenced by any observation made in the HC order.
