Overview

• A bench of Justices Subramonium Prasad and Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar expressed dismay that arguments on framing charges remain incomplete five years after the February 2020 riots despite around 700 witnesses
• Tasleem Ahmed, arrested by the Delhi Police Special Cell under the UAPA in June 2020, has spent five years in custody while seeking bail on grounds of undue delay
• Defence counsel Mehmood Pracha cited parity with co-accused Devangana Kalita, Natasha Narwal and Asif Iqbal Tanha, who were granted bail in 2021 due to similar trial delays
• Special Public Prosecutor Amit Prasad countered that repeated adjournment requests by the accused were responsible for much of the trial’s slow progress
• A recent judicial reshuffle briefly removed then reinstated the sessions judge at Karkardooma Court, a change defence lawyers say further disrupted charge hearing continuity