New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court challenging the Delhi High Court order granting bail to student activists Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita, and Asif Iqbal Tanha booked under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) for an alleged 'premeditated conspiracy' in the northeast Delhi riots last year.
In its appeal against the order, the Delhi Police said that they are not satisfied with the interpretation of the provisions of UAPA by the High Court in a matter concerned with the grant of bail.
"We are proceeding with the filing of a Special Leave Petition before the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India," the police stated.
On Tuesday, a Delhi HC bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Anup J Bhambhani had set aside the trial court's orders denying bail to all the three student activists.
"In our opinion, the intent and purport of the Parliament in enacting the UAPA, and more specifically in amending it in 2004 and 2008 to bring the terrorist activity within its scope, was, and could only have had been, to deal with matters of profound impact on the 'Defence of India', nothing more and nothing less" the bench had asserted.
Narwal and Kalita, research scholars at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and also the members of 'Pinjra Tod', a collective of students from colleges in Delhi, were lodged in Tihar Jail since May last year.
Asif Iqbal Tanha is a final year BA student at Jamia Millia Islamia. He was arrested in the Delhi riots case under UAPA in May 2020 and has been in continuous custody since then.
The police claimed that Tanha played an active role in orchestrating the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
On February 24,2020, communal clashes had broken out in northeast Delhi after violence between citizenship law supporters and protesters spiraled out of control leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.(UNI)