Thread by @LawBeatInd

BREAKING: Division Bench of Delhi High Court is hearing #UmarKhalid bail plea. Hearing begins.

Mr. Trideep Pais (appearing for Umar Khalid) - I will ask my associate to read out the FIR, which is in Hindi.

Court - Mr. Pais don't you think it is a handicap to not be able to read Hindi practicing criminal law?

FIR is read out.

Court faces technical glitches. Mr. Pais video is frozen.

HMJ Siddharth Mridul - Mr. Pais your frame is freezing. You are coming across in waves. and you are not someone who freezes.

Mr. Pais - I can log out and log in.

Mr. Pais logs out and logs in.

HMJ Siddharth Mridul - Mr. Prasad, why is the process of S.207 taking so long?

APP Amit Prasad - They want unrelied docs which cannot be given.

Trideep Pais reads English translation of the FIR.
Pais - Please see the trajectory of the FIR. On 6th March the FIR has been registered and it only has bailable offences. Three people are arrested. and produced before the magistrate

proceeds to read magistrate's order

Magistrate's order states that since all offences were bailable, bail ought to have granted by the IO.

The 3 people arrested are released on bail.

Pais - Milords this was the FIR for conspiracy to hatch a plan for CAA protests.

Pais - on the same set of facts, another FIR was registered for non bailable offences.

Pais reads out Safoora Zargar's FIR.

Court - offences with which Ms. Zargar was charged, were they bailable?

Pais - No milords, offences were non bailable. But on the same set of facts, the FIR has moved from having bailable offences to non bailable offences.

Pais: There is reference to many speeches and none of them are produced except the one that I read out, which was the Amravati speech in Feb. Starting of the FIR itself is secret information.

Reads Transcript of Amravati speech as uploaded on YouTube by Republic World.

Refers to Notice under S.91 of CrPc from Special Cell to Editor of Republic World to provide the Amravati speech for investigation purposes.

Trideep Pais - Milords it shows that as on 6th of March, the police had no material with them. They seek to gather materials ten days later! Please see the response of the TV Channel comes in 20th June. Republic World's letter dated 20th June gives the footage to the Special cell

The letter stated that the speech was not recorded by Republic World. It was recorded by someone else and was tweeted by a politician.
Trideep Pais - Milords this shows that there has been no effort on the part of the Special Cell to collect the raw footage.

Trideep Pais - They are only relying on second hand evidence produced by TV channels, days after the FIR was registered!

Court - Are you saying that the only investigation qua you is on the basis of the speech acquired from TV Channels like Republic World and News18?

Pais - Milords. There was no other investigation done. The other evidence/statements collected have no relation to the actual crime I am being accused of. They are standalone statements.

Pais - If this is a terror crime of the nature which the prosecution is making it out to be would they wait to arrest for six months?

Court - It is nobody's case that the riots did not occur. The initial registration of FIRs under provisions which were all bailable offences. Then you say there was further investigation and non bailable offences were added.

Pais - Non bailable offences were added on 15th

Court - so in sum and substance your argument is that all the investigation was malafide?

Pais - Yes milords.

Pais - (while explaining the meaning of the speech given in Amravati). We may have different views on the speech. Would it constitute a crime? I dont think so. He is only trying to explain that the students of Jamia were fighting for India's freedom.
Court - When was Jamia setup

Pais - it was registered as a society pre independence in 1924. He also refers to AMU because they were both universities protesting against CAA. Let me play the speech for your lordships.
Court - is the video of the speech on the record?
Sanya Kumar - not a part of chargesheet

Sanya Kumar - but we have placed it on record.

APP Amit Prasad - the transcript of the speech is there on record.

Court - alright so we can play the speech.

Speech played in court

Court - who is referred "ooth" in the speech. He refers in the speech as the camel came under the mountain (ooth Pahad ke neeche aa gaya)?

Pais - He refers to the govt.

Pais - The speech is certainly anti-CAA. It is anti - govt. it certainly says that the people being accused as anti national, were fighting for independence from the British. The crowd is seated. It is not incited. There is only a reference to a protest when Trump comes to India

Pais - the speech doesn't even refer to Delhi.

Court - What does he say about the PM?

Pais - he says a lot in the context of CAA, NRC and economic policies. But criticism cannot be a crime

Court - there are two expressions he uses. One is "inqalab" and the other is "krantikari". What is the take away from this word?

Pais - It means Krantikari. Though my Hindi is not great.

Court - what is the word "changa" he said? What is the word he used for the PM after?

The court refers to the Umar Khalid insulting the PM.

Pais - milord that cant be the crime. We cannot use UAPA against any person criticising the govt.

Pais - There have been broad allegations made without any basis. Allegations have also not been supported by CDR locations. Allegations made by witnesses do not support the charges. There maybe an outrage that he has spoken a certain way. But would it be a crime?

Pais - (refers to judgement of Balwant Singh, Rangarajan and Shreya Singhal) - I would show milords that the only piece of direct evidence does not make out the crime!

Pais - *starts with quoting the Kedarnath Judgement on speech and incitement*.

Kedarnath judgement refers to incitement and what is tendency to create disorder.

Pais - what is incitement and what is tendency to create disorder, we will see in Rangarajan's case.

#DelhiHighCourt #UmarKhalid #UAPA #DelhiRiots

Court - There is a distinction. The speakers were not addressed to a gathering. Besides, back in the day the speech was limited to a geographical area. Today it is uploaded on social media today.

Court - You have cited all the cases and nobody can argue with your proposition wrt free speech.
But there needs to be a live link established between the speech and the riots that took place. What is the consequence of your employing such expressions?

Court - Nobody has a quarrel with the judgements you have cited. In the circumstances attendant, when you delivered the speech, there was violence that had already erupted.

Pais - No the violence was more than a week later.

Court - So the violence followed the speech

Court - so the connection between the violence and the speech needs to be examined. What has to be seen is did your speech result in the violence? It is not helpful to state that the camera panned towards the audience in the video of the speech and the audience was seated.

Pais - The seated audience argument was only to meet the test laid down in Balwant's speech. No witness to violence of Delhi who said that i was incited by Khalid's speech. In any case the speech does not call for violence. It calls for peaceful protests.

Court takes a break. Will resume post lunch session at 2:15

Hearing continues.
Prosecutor says that it is incorrect that the CDR keys were not produced. He shows a letter by Umar Khalid’s counsel accepting that they were in fact received by him.

Pais for Khalid: I want to place on record statements of some witnesses. "BEETA"'s statement says that on April 3, he deposes on several things, including Umar Khalid's speech at Amravati.

The statement of BEETA discloses that the protected witnesses saw many persons attending meetings including Brinda Karat, Mehmood Pracha, Kanwalpreet Kaur. "Much pata laga ki ink iraadey theek nahi hain", the statement reads.

Statement of BEETA being read in Delhi HC. BEETA is a protected witness in chargesheet against accused in Delhi Riots: "Inki (Umar Khalid) speech ke baad regular meetings hoti thi... Wahan par Safoor Zargar ne kaafi provocative speech di ki "Hum Sarkar ko Khatam kardenge".

Statement of BEETA being read in Delhi HC. BEETA is a protected witness in chargesheet against accused in Delhi Riots: "Mehmood Pracha har site par atey they, ye kehete the ki legal support mai doonga. Inn sabko sakht se sakht sazaa di jaye, dilli Mei jo hua in sabki wajah se"

The statements other protected witnesses are being read out in Delhi High court. These had been read out by the prosecution during the bail hearing of Umar Khalid, others before a bench of ASJ Amitabh Rawat.

Pais says "nothing on record to show Umar Khalid was involved, the special court's order only alludes to the visit of Donald trump and that alluding has nothing to do with a crime. When someone has a grievance, people wait for dignitaries to come. That cannot be termed as terror"

Delhi High Court: By himself, he (Umar Khalid), even if he may not have been able to give "anjaam" to conspiracy, but any role that begins through this by actual co-conspirators -you have to answer for other co-conspirators as well. That is the law.

Delhi HC: If the idea was to employ arson or any device to insinuate violence, would it not be violence? Your argument is, there was no common intention.
Khalids lawyer: Common intention was peacefully protesting against CAA/NRC.

Delhi HC: We will come to it. We will come to whether there was intention to insinuate violence. This is why we asked you meaning of word "Kraantikaari". We asked you meaning of the word at the beginning of the hearing.

Delhi HC: When Umar Khalid employs words "Inquilab" & "Krantikaari", we have to see what he means. The question is, this is not a knee-jerk reaction. Point is, why should he refer to it as "Krantikaari" & "Inquilaabi".

Prosecution: And people are clapping at Umar Khalid's speech!
Khalid's lawyer: That doesn't make it terror!
Delhi HC: You are obviously not employing that they are clapping because it is STAND-UP Comedy?

Delhi HC: This is like "galvanising the troops" (Umar Khalid's speech). You may not have to incite everyone. We may not be incited but inciting co-conspirators will be incitement to violence.

Khalid's lawyer: He at no point incited people to violence. This common intention theory gets debunked. in fact he takes credit for things he never did.
Delhi HC: You don't expect him to confess, do you?

Delhi HC: When Khalid says in his speech "we will show the media..." what does he mean.. what does he want to show the world? Please show us the speech.

Khalids lawyer reads speech: "hum wada karte Hain ki jab trump aayenge, hum dikhaenge ki Hindustan ki sarkaar Mahatma Gandhi ke assooolon ki dhhajiyaan udaa rahin hai.. aap log sadak par aayenge... "

Delhi HC: See! he asks everyone to come on the streets...!

Khalid's lawyer says that this speech starts with Mahatma Gandhi's reference.

Delhi HC: This is a carefully drafted speech! No doubt he (Umar Khalid) is an intelligent man....!

Delhi HC: When was this speech of Umar Khalid uploaded to social media?
Khalids lawyer: We got it in July
Delhi HC: Forget about when you got it! Tell us when it was uploaded in social media!
Lawyer: We'll check

Khalid's lawyer's reads out chargesheet: I do not want to read this part of the chargesheet...
Delhi HC: You should know... it says "la ilāha illā llahu muḥammadun rasulu llah.... "
Khalid's lawyer continues: ....which is a slogan against secularism.."

Delhi HC: Umar Khalid is founder of this DPSG Group?
Khalid's lawyer: He is a part of it.

Delhi HC: The chargesheet says they are all meeting each other
Khalids Lawyer: I'm glad my lord appreciates that the chargesheet says they are all just meeting each other
Delhi HC: But they are not strangers, all of them have shared stage.

Khalid's lawyer is reading out judgments which are relevant to his case.

Court asks Khalid's lawyer how long they intend to take.
Lawyer says he intends to read some statements etc, so it will take time accordingly.
We will continue tomorrow.
"Will it be physical or virtual?": lawyer
"Depends on outcome of my RTPCR test": Delhi HC Justice S. Mridul

Umar Khalid's Speech more like 'galvanising troops': Delhi High Court orally remarks during bail hearing
@tishya_saran reports
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