Arrested JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar on Friday filed a bail petition in the Delhi High Court after the Supreme Court refused to entertain his application suggesting it would set a “dangerous precedent.” The SC also directed the Delhi Police to ensure foolproof security in the Delhi HC. Earlier, a local court denied bail to SAR Geelani in the sedition case.
Amid tight security and accompanied by a posse of policemen, advocates Vrinda Grover and Sushil Bajaj met the listing Registrar, who pointed out some technical glitches in the petition. The advocates were given time to rectify these by filing additional documents. With the same being done during the day, sources in HC said the petition would be
listed either on Monday or Tuesday.
A huge crowd of lawyers, journalists and students had gathered inside the courtroom of Justices Chelameswar and Abhay Manohar Sapre to witness the day’s proceedings.
The petition for a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe failed to gather much steam after Solicitor-General Ranjit Kumar, appearing for the Delhi Police, pointed out that the petition did not mention a single fact to suggest that any lawyer for Kumar was threatened, intimidated or manhandled or anything that could point at a lapse in investigation on the part of the Delhi Police.
The Bench said the petition with an “omnibus” prayer to transfer investigation cannot be entertained. It asked senior advocate CU Singh to re-file the petition with specific averments to justify a SIT probe.
It was now the turn of Kumar’s lawyer senior advocate Raju Ramachandran to argue the extraordinary request to grant bail.
The Bench agreed with Ramachandran that an extraordinary situation prevailed in the trial court.
But it wondered why they rushed to the SC instead of approaching Delhi HC. Kumar’s lawyers argued that the threat at the HC would be similar to the prevailing threat at Patiala House Courts complex due to its proximity and the fact that lawyers appearing at Patiala House have easy access to HC as compared to the SC.
Supporting Kumar was former Attorney-General Soli Sorabjee who said that the test to be applied was whether the threat to the accused and his legal team was real or imaginary. Recounting what occurred over the days, Sorabjee said that the threat cannot be imaginary.
However, the Solicitor-General submitted that the request put forth would set a bad precedent and would show HC as being “incapable” of affording a fair hearing to an accused. The Bench told Ramachandran, “It is a dangerous proposition. Remember this is not the only case of this type. If this court will entertain your petition, wherever there are sensitive cases involving political persons, actors or prominent persons, they will approach this court. There will be quite a good number of cases elsewhere where there is commotion…so in every case if it is said that the SC is the only court, it would lead to a dangerous precedent.”
Finding consensus that security was the only issue to be tackled, the Bench transferred the bail petition to Delhi HC asking Delhi Police to assure safety to the counsel of the accused while appearing in court. The Bench even asked the HC Registrar-General to regulate entry into the courtroom.