New Delhi: The Supreme Court today issued notice to JNU students Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita and Asif Iqbal Tanha on Delhi Police's plea against the Delhi HC order granting bail to them and making some stringent observations against UAPA. The court has not stayed the bail order passed so the students will remain to be out on bail. In the meantime, the HC judgement shall not be considered precedent and should not be relied by any of the parties before any court.
The bench comprising of Justice Hemant Gupta and Justice V Ramasubramanian were surprised to see that the HC passed an order running into hundreds of pages over a bail plea when the constitutionality of UAPA was not even challenged before it. It said that this will have to be examined.
Solicitor General, Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Delhi police contended that the "entire UAPA has been turned on its head along with the constitution" and strongly opposed the observation made regarding the Right to protest. He submitted that an incident had occurred when the US President was visiting to make an impact, these were the statements of the people.53 people died of which many were police officers,700 were injured because they conspired, said SG.
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"More than 700 people are injured and court says that timely riots were controlled so UAPA doesn't apply. So it means if I put a bomb somewhere and bomb squad diffuses it, it won't apply," argued Mehta.
Citing HC judgement's excerpt on right to protest, SG questioned when does right to protest gives right to kill. "The protest was under a perceived belief against CAA. The lady who assassinated the former Prime Minister was also acting under a perceived belief!," argued Mehta. The court said that issue of observations against UAPA in a bail plea will have to be examined by it and sought counter-affidavits from the parties within 4 weeks. The matter will be heard again in the week commencing 19th July.
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