“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”. The Islamists and liberals seem to have been deeply influenced by this saying by the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. The Islamo-leftist ecosystem has been blatantly lying about the deferrals on the bail pleas moved by 2020 anti-Hindu Delhi Riots accused Umar Khalid since his arrest in September 2020.
In this vein, ‘Journalist’ and leftist propagandist Kaushik Raj claimed that somehow Umar Khalid was forced to withdraw his bail plea from the Supreme Court after 14 deferrals. He insinuated that even as CJI Chandrachud said that he granted bail to senior journalist Arnab Goswami to AltNews ‘fact-checker’ Mohammed Zubair, somehow Umar Khalid was deliberately denied bail.
“While CJI Chandrachud claims he gave bails from A to Z, from Arnab to Zubair, Umar Khalid had to withdraw his bail plea from the Supreme Court after 14 deferrals. This should be a shame for the Supreme Court,” Raj said in an X post on 5th November.
Before delving into how Kaushik Raj’s claim is just another thread in the mendacious narrative, the Islamo-liberal ecosystem is weaving to project Umar Khalid as a victim of somehow a ‘biased’ and ‘incompetent’ judiciary, it is pertinent to find out Kaushik Raj’s connection with the 2020 anti-Hindu Delhi Riots.
During the bail hearing of Umar Khalid in Karkardooma Court in April this year, the public prosecutor said a false narrative is being set in media and on social media to influence the judiciary by media houses, activists and NGOs to influence the judiciary in favour of Khalid. Special Public Prosecutor Amit Prasad revealed WhatsApp chats between Umar Khalid and several influential individuals like Swara Bhaskar, Sushant Singh, AltNews, Yogendra Yadav, Sanjukta Basu, Pooka Bhatt and others to demonstrate how he was creating a false narrative in his favour to influence the judiciary in his favour. The prosecutor took several names like Teesta Setalvad, Aakar Patel, Amnesty International, Azhar Khan, Kaushik Raj and Swati Chaturvedi who have been helping in setting the narrative. The prosecutor further mentioned that these individuals and entities run hashtags in his support and present a false narrative of the case.
The truth of 14 adjournments ‘injustice’
While the leftists claim that Umar Khalid’s bail hearing is being deliberately delayed and that he is languishing in jail for four years because the entire ‘system’ including the Judiciary and the Modi government is letting Khalid get bail, however, Umar Khalid himself is to blame for 7 out of 14 adjournments.
It was only in April 2023 that he approached the Supreme Court. Before that, Umar Khalid had got a 1-week reprieve to attend his sister’s marriage in December 2022. If Kaushik Raj and other ‘liberals’ are so concerned about Umar Khalid rotting in jail without trial, they should ask why Umar Khalid waited 6 months before moving to the Supreme Court for bail, after the rejection by the High Court. Also, while there were screeches about the delay in the hearing, there were several times when his lawyer Kapil Sibal himself wanted the case to be adjourned.
Notably, OpIndia found that out of the 14 adjournments in 2023 and 2024, 7 delays and adjournments were sought by Umar Khalid himself. It therefore becomes evident that the withdrawal was certainly not because of the famed “delay” in hearing. While the Islamo-leftist ecosystem continues to cry ‘injustice’, it is the alleged failed forum shopping attempts of the accused’s lawyer that has Khalid rotting in jail for so long.
It was on the 31st of October when a Supreme Court bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Bela Trivedi tagged Khalid’s bail petition with other matters challenging the constitutionality of provisions in the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. The petitions include Khalid’s writ petition challenging the UAPA provisions, and the UAPA Charges Related to Tripura Violence where FIRs were filed against lawyers and journalists who undertook a fact-finding mission in the Tripura violence of October 2021. It is also on the 31st of October that the saga of adjournments by Kapil Sibal was triggered.
On the 29th of November, the petitioners wanted the petitions de-tagged. Prashant Bhushan said that the Tripura violence case had been heard by CJI Chandrachud 8 times and therefore, this case should be heard by him as well. Justice Bela Trivedi disagreed and said that the petitions would be heard by her and the newly appointed Justice S.C. Sharma. This exchange was even though the petitions had been tagged due to Umar Khalid’s lawyers’ request to begin with.
In this instance, it was due to the unavailability of Kapil Sibal and the ASG that the hearing was pushed to January 2024.
Interestingly, in December, Prashant Bhushan had shot off an angry letter to CJI Chandrachud over the Tripura matter, with which Umar Khalid’s plea was tagged, being listed in front of Justice Bela Trivedi instead of the CJI himself. There were other letters too complaining of irregularities in cases being listed in front of Justice Trivedi – by Dushyant Dave and Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
Abhishek Manu Singhvi at the time, in a hearing related to Satyendra Jain’s bail petition mentioned the ‘irregularity’ in the case being listed in front of Justice Trivedi, which the CJI promptly shut down.
The CJI responded to an urgent oral mention made by former Delhi Minister Satyender Jain’s lawyer, represented by senior advocate A.M. Singhvi about the listing of his bail petition in the Delhi liquor policy case before a Bench headed by Justice Bela M. Trivedi on December 14. Singhvi said a Special Bench of Justices A.S. Bopanna and Trivedi was already hearing the case. “We have been arguing before the Special Bench. The case is already partially heard… Now, today, it has been listed before a Bench headed by Justice Trivedi. Let it continue to be heard by the earlier Special Bench,” Singhvi urged.
Post-lunch, when the court re-convened, the Chief Justice informed Singhvi that there had been a communication from the office of Justice Bopanna that he could not resume his judicial duties after the Diwali vacations due to medical reasons. The judge’s office had asked all the part-heard matters before him to be released. Consequently, the case of Jain was shifted to the judge, Justice Trivedi, on the Bench.
“It is very easy to fling allegations and letters,” the Chief Justice said. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who was present in the courtroom, said the “only way to deal with malicious letters is by ignoring them”.
The CJI had said, “If the case is listed before a judge, the judge will take a call. I will not say anything,” the Chief Justice said emphatically. This was in response to not just the issue raised by Singhvi, but also Prashant Bhushan (In the Tripura case to which Umar Khalid’s bail plea was tagged) and Dushyant Dave.
Thereafter, the hearings came up in front of the bench comprising Justice Bela Trivedi and Justice Pankaj Mithal. This time, while the unavailability of ASG promoted the bench to postpone the hearing to 17th January, Kapil Sibal asked the court to delay it further—the hearing was set for 24 January 2024 instead.
On the 24th, the case was listed before a Bench of Justices Bela M. Trivedi and Ujjal Bhuyan. It was again the advocate of Umar Khalid who asked for an adjournment, which was granted.
On the 31st of January, a bench of Justices Bela Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal were to hear the plea. However, due to Justice Mithal’s unavailability, the newly appointed Justice P.B. Varale joined Justice Trivedi instead. While the court wanted to hear the case on the 1st of February, it was against Kapil Sibal who sought the case to be listed on another day since he would be busy with the AMU matter. To this, the judges had kept it open-ended, saying “We will see”.
When the case came up for hearing on the 1st of February, as requested by Kapil Sibal – the bench adjourned the hearing to the 7th of February, however, on the 7th, the bench was occupied in another case. When the hearing came up on the 14th of February, Kapil Sibal withdrew the bail petition and the separate petition challenging the validity of certain sections of the UAPA.
As per the timeline traced by OpIndia, it is evident that after the exit of Justice Aniruddha Bose, Umar Khalid and his lawyers – Kapil Sibal to be precise – demanded adjournments ad nauseam till the petitions were withdrawn. Further, it is evident that Prashant Bhushan also attempted to ensure that the case was listed before the CJI, a proposal struck down by Justice Bela Trivedi. This poses an important question of whether Kapil Sibal was “trying his luck” at forum shopping and having failed at that, withdrew his petition from the Supreme Court. OpIndia’s analysis of the sequence of events in the Umar Khalid case suggests that there were only two “changes in circumstances” that could have led to the decision by Umar Khalid – one is the change in judge, the other is a crucial change/clarification of the law On the 7th of January 2024, in a different matter, the Supreme Court clarified that in UAPA cases, jail is the norm and bail is the exception – Umar Khalid and other accused have been arguing in court that according to the law, jail is the exception and bail is the norm as on the 7th of January 2024, in a different matter, the Supreme Court clarified that in UAPA cases, jail is the norm and bail is the exception – Umar Khalid and other accused have been arguing in court that according to the law, jail is the exception and bail is the norm.
