Delhi Riots: Supreme Court hears bail pleas by Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, others [LIVE UPDATES]

Justice Kumar: This was collected subsequent to the registration of FIR?

ASG Raju: Yes. During the course of the investigation. There is no hearsay as they (the accused) have argued.

ASG Raju continues reading statement of protected witnesses:

ASG Raju: This says he had collected arms.

ASG Raju: He (Umar Khalid) was taking minute to minute information about the riots, the chakka jaams and the protests.

ASG Raju continues reading statements of protected witnesses.

ASG Raju: He (Umar Khalid) was actively involved in all the meetings. He was supervising, getting all the information.

ASG Raju: As per protected witness James all instructions came from Umar Khalid. The decisions of JCC used to come from Umar Khalid and Nadeem Khan. Umar Khalid was actually present on the ground on the first stage of the protest. There is CDR evidence of that.

Justice Kumar: We want all this (all the documents) in one compilation. Volume 1,2,3. Otherwise this will go like a wildfire.

ASG Raju: We will complete and then give it.

Justice Kumar: Yes.

Justice Kumar: Why are you showing prior FIR for riots that happened in 2020? What has it got to do with it?

ASG Raju: Conspiracy begins before the act. Conspiracy can start even 2 years before. It happens before the act.

The court struggles finding paragraphs from where Raju is reading.

Justice Kumar: Your instructing counsels have adopted a policy - either convince the judge or confuse the judge.

ASG Raju hands documents to the court master

Justice Kumar: It is very difficulty tracing all this. It high courts it is much better. This applies to them also. They keep handing out documents like magicians.

ASG Raju: About Bharat tere tukde tukde honge - entire FIR which had this anti national slogan was relied on this in this chargesheet. it was a subject matter of FIR No. 110/16.

ASG Raju: On 11.3.2020 they migrated to Signal. Therefore the fact that he could not post on that group (DPSG - Delhi protest support group) is wrong. Till the crucial dates he could. Later they made that change.

Raju reads from 164 statements of witnesses.

ASG Raju: He (Umar Khalid) has deliberately planned to leave Delhi before the riots happened. He wanted to deflect responsibility. The planning was done by Umar Khalid. They have misstated that he was not admin of DPSG group and only admins could send messages. Everyone could post messages before March 11 including Umar Khalid. After March 11 they deleted everything and subsequently he was not made an admin.

ASG Raju: We were ready. there is no delay on the part of the prosecution. They said we want hard copies of everything. 30000 pages.

ASG Raju: The court has already taken cognisance. The material that they are waiting for may not even come.

Justice Kumar: Then you should have said so.

ASG Raju: ...On delay. The accused can’t say wait for further evidence to come and then I’ll argue on charges. If other evidence comes you can modify charge. There can be discharge if there is no evidence. But they can’t say they won’t argue on charges till other evidence comes.

Justice Kumar: You brought Umar Khalid in the second chargesheet. Their grievance is you went one after the other…

ASG Raju for Delhi Police: Acts of one conspirator can be be attributed to others. Sharjeel Imam’s speeches can be attributed to Umar Khalid…Sharjeel Imam’s case will be considered as evidence against the others.

Hearing starts