The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed an appeal filed by the police challenging the bail granted to former Congress councillor Ishrat Jahan in the larger conspiracy case linked to the 2020 riots in the capital, Bar and Bench reported.
Jahan was granted bail in the case in 2022.
While hearing the appeal against her bail, a bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja said that over four years had passed since the former councillor was granted bail by a special court.
There was nothing to show that she had violated any of the bail conditions, it added.
The case pertains to clashes that had broken out in North East Delhi from February 23 to February 26, 2020, between supporters of the Citizenship Amendment Act and those opposing it, leaving 53 dead and hundreds injured. Most of those killed were Muslims.
Several activists were arrested between January 2020 and September 2020 in connection with the violence. The accused were charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, the Arms Act and sections of the Indian Penal Code.
The Delhi Police have claimed that the violence was part of a larger conspiracy to defame the Narendra Modi government and was planned by those who organised the protests against the amended Citizenship Act.
Jahan was arrested in February 2020. The special court in March 2022 granted bail to the former councillor after noting that there were no allegations in the chargesheet that she was physically present during the riots.
It also said that Jahan was not part of the any WhatsApp groups that played a large role in the alleged conspiracy.
In its appeal in the High Court, the Delhi Police alleged that the lower court ignored the evidence and statements that were produced before it, Bar and Bench reported.
It added that the order granting Jahan bail was passed “discarding the evidences which clearly made out a sinister plot of engineering mass-scale violent riots" in the national capital.
The timing of the riots was meticulously chosen by Jahan and other co-conspirators with the visit of the United States president in order to garner the attention of the international media, the police added.
The Delhi Police said that the order issued by the lower court was not only in the teeth of the settled of law, but suffered from infirmities that go to the root of the matter, the legal news portal reported.
Meanwhile, the trial court January 24 framed charges of attempt to murder and rioting against Jahan.
Also read: How Delhi riots accused Ishrat Jahan survived two years in jail by writing a diary
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