SC seeks state's reply on bail plea by anti-CAA protesters

The Supreme Court has asked the Karnataka government to respond to a plea for interim bail by 21 anti-CAA protesters on the ground of Covid-19 pandemic. They were arrested in connection with violence during a protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act in Mangaluru.

Two people lost their lives after the police opened fire in Mangaluru as the anti-CAA protest turned violent.

A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian issued notice to the state government on the application filed by Ashik alias Mohammad Asik and others, seeking its reply within two weeks.

The petitioners, led by senior advocate R Basant and Haris Beeran, contended that they were involved in peaceful protests but the police resorted to the firing leading to death of two persons.

They said they have been in custody for more than seven months since December 22, 2019 and the police have already filed charge sheet and hence they were no more required for investigation.

The petitioners were already granted bail by the Karnataka High Court on February 17. However, this order was stayed by the apex court on March 6.

In their plea, the petitioners said after the apex court’s order of March 6, “the scenario has considerably changed with the fatal spread of Covid-19 pandemic throughout the country and the world.”

It has, therefore, become necessary not to keep undertrials unnecessarily detained as it would lead to overcrowding of jails and may cause spread of the virus, they said.

Maintaining that they had already suffered police brutality, the petitioners contended that rejecting their plea for interim bail would cause irreparable injury to them and could result in death, not to mention the risk posed to the public at large as a result of further transmission.