New Delhi, January 17
Maintaining that it didn’t believe in unnecessarily keeping people in jail, the Supreme Court on Tuesday disapproved of the Delhi High Court spending hours hearing the bail petitions of three student activists accused in a case relating to the North-East Delhi riots that claimed 53 lives and left over 700 injured in 2020.
“We don’t believe in unnecessarily keeping people behind the bars,” a Bench led by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul said, adding spending hours hearing the bail pleas was a “complete waste” of time of the HC.
The Bench was hearing petitions filed by the police challenging the June 15, 2021, orders of the HC granting bail to accused Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita and Asif Iqbal Tanha in a case related to communal violence during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
The top court deferred the hearing to January 31 after advocate Rajat Nair, representing the police, urged the Bench to adjourn the hearing for two weeks.
