[Delhi Riots Bail] Delhi High Court somehow wanted to establish protest was mere dissent: 5 grounds raised by Delhi Police before Supreme Court

The Delhi Police on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court challenging the Delhi High Court order granting bail to Asif Iqbal Tanha, Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal in a Delhi Riots case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act..Below are five important grounds on which the Delhi High Court order has been assailed before the apex court. .Judicial Scrutiny by High Court was to somehow establish that the protest was mere dissentThe plea in strong words deprecated the approach of the High Court, stating that the judicial scrutiny was to somehow establish that the present case was a case of protest by students and suppression of dissent by the government of the day.Such a conclusion is without any foundation and based more on the social media narrative than the evidence gathered and elaborated in the chargesheet, the plea said..High Court decided case on a pre-conceived illusionThe Delhi Police told the Supreme Court that the High Court decided the case on a pre-conceived and a completely erroneous illusion, as if, the present case was a simpliciter case of protest by students.High Court completely lost sight of the evidences and statements which were produced before it and had arrived at the judgment discarding the evidences which clearly made out a sinister plot of mass-scale riots being hatched by the accused. .There was evidence of terrorist activity; High Court did not consider the evidenceThe plea stated that the High Court did not advert to or analyse the cogent evidence on record of the case and has applied irrelevant considerations while granting the bail to the respondent and other co-conspirators.The petition stated that there was a cause and evidence of terrorist activity against the respondent; there was corroborative evidence, however, while applying the legislative mandate the High Court misdirected itself and gave ex-facie perverse findings to arrive a conclusion that no case of UAPA was made out..Same approach applied for all three accusedThe plea further said that same approach was adopted by the High Court the all the three cases of the accused were decided..High Court read down UAPA, will have far reaching consequencesThe plea also claimed that in pursuit of establishing that the present case was mere case of protest and an attempt by the Government to suppress the dissent, read down the provisions of UAPA, specially that of the definition of terrorism under Section 15 of the Act.It held that provisions of UAPA can only be applied to deal with matters of profound impact on the ‘Defence of India’, nothing more and nothing less.This, the Delhi Police submitted is an irrelevant consideration to grant bail to the respondent.Further, it will have far reaching consequences for cases investigated by NIA and other investigating agencies..High Court held a mini-trialIt was contended that High Court failed to comprehend the correct import of the judgment rendered by the Supreme Court in the case of NIA v. Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali and went on to hold a mini trial in a bail matter.