The Delhi High Court refused to cancel Ishrat Jahan’s bail, noting no violation of conditions in over four years. Delhi Police’s plea alleging a larger conspiracy behind the 2020 riots was rejected by the Court.
The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed an appeal filed by the Delhi Police against a special court order that had granted bail to Congress councillor Ishrat Jahan in connection with the North-East Delhi riots of February 2020. The High Court’s decision reinforces the earlier bail granted to Jahan and highlights the absence of any violation of bail conditions over a significant period.
A Division Bench comprising Justice Navin Chawla and Justice Ravinder Dudeja observed that more than four years have passed since the bail was granted by the special court, and there has been no evidence to suggest that Jahan misused her liberty or breached any of the conditions imposed on her.
Ishrat Jahan was arrested in March 2020 in relation to the Delhi riots case. The charges against her included serious offences under multiple laws such as the Indian Penal Code, the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, the Arms Act, and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. These charges stemmed from allegations of her involvement in a larger conspiracy behind the violence that took place in the national capital.
In March 2022, the special court granted bail to Jahan after examining the available material. The court had specifically noted that she was not the originator of the idea of “Chakka Jam” protests and was also not a member of any of the organisations or WhatsApp groups that were allegedly involved in planning the conspiracy behind the riots.
Challenging this order, the Delhi Police approached the High Court, arguing that the trial court had failed to properly appreciate the evidence and witness statements placed before it. In its appeal, the police contended that the lower court had passed the bail order “discarding the evidences which clearly made out a sinister plot of engineering mass-scale violent riots” in the national capital.
The appeal further stated,
“It is also pertinent to note here that that the said riots did not occur in the spur of moment or due to fit of communal anger but was pre-planned in multi-layered, multi-organizational fashion,”
emphasizing that the violence was allegedly part of a well-thought-out conspiracy rather than a spontaneous outbreak.
According to the police, the timing of the riots was strategically chosen by Jahan and other alleged co-conspirators to coincide with the visit of the American President, with the intention of attracting international media attention and amplifying the impact of the unrest.
The plea also argued that the special court’s decision granting bail was legally flawed. It claimed that the order was
“not only in the teeth of the settled of law, but suffered from infirmities which go to the root of the matter,”
thereby questioning the legal soundness of the bail granted to Jahan.
Despite these arguments, the Delhi High Court declined to interfere with the bail order, effectively upholding the special court’s reasoning and decision.
It is also important to note that in January 2024, the trial court framed charges against Ishrat Jahan for offences including attempt to murder and rioting. The trial in the case is currently ongoing, and the final determination of guilt or innocence will depend on the outcome of the trial proceedings.
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