The Supreme Court on Tuesday, 2 May, dismissed an appeal by the Delhi Police against the Delhi High Court order granting bail to student activists Devangana Kalita, Asif Iqbal Tanha, and Natasha Narwal in the Delhi Riots ‘Larger Conspiracy’ Case.
The three activists were released on bail from the Tihar Jail after 13 months of imprisonment on 17 June 2021.
But the Delhi Police had subsequently challenged the order granting them bail.
Noting that that the accused had been out on bail for two years, the top court said, according to LiveLaw:
"While issuing notice we observed that the impugned judgment shall not be treated as a precedent. The idea was to protect the State against the use of the judgment to enunciate the law in a bail matter. The accused have been enlarged on bail for 2 years.We find no reason to keep this matter alive."
The matter was listed before a bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Abhay S Oka and JB Pardiwala.
In January this year, while hearing the case the bench had remarked:
“We don’t believe in unnecessarily putting people behind bars. Bail matters should not go on and on and should not be dealt with in this manner.”
The Supreme Court had in June 2021 also passed a direction that the Delhi High Court judgment would not apply as precedent until the matter was finally decided. Thus, some of the co-accused in the case have, according to Livelaw, also filed impleadment applications pertaining to the other cases.
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