Student activists Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita and Asif Iqbal Tanha walk out of Tihar Jail

Student activists Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita and Asif Iqbal Tanha walked out of Tihar prison on June 17, hours after a court in Delhi ordered their immediate release in the Delhi riots case.

The order came two days after the Delhi High Court granted bail to Ms. Narwal, Ms. Kalita and Mr. Tanha.

Director General (Delhi Prisons) Sandeep Goel confirmed that all three have been released.

A senior jail official said Ms. Kalita and Ms. Narwal were released around 7 p.m. and Mr. Tanha at around 7.30 p.m.

Earlier in the day, a Delhi court issued the release warrant for the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Millia Islamia, who were arrested in May last year in connection the northeast Delhi riots.

Additional Sessions Judge Ravinder Bedi rejected the Delhi Police argument that it needed more time to verify the permanent addresses of the three accused as they are outside Delhi. “I would say this by itself cannot be a plausible reason for the accused to be kept imprisoned till the time such reports are filed,” the judge said.

“The accused is directed to be released forthwith as per orders of the Delhi High Court,” the court said taking into account the undertaking given by the counsel of the accused that their clients will not leave the jurisdiction of the Capital.

In the morning, the High Court directed the trial court to “proceed with promptitude and expedition” on the pleas filed by the three activists seeking immediate release.

“The orders enlarging the applicants on bail has already been rendered by us. It needs to be implemented. This cannot be an open-ended process,” the High Court had said.

The Delhi Police argued that it also needed to verify the Aadhaar cards of the people who have been nominated as sureties by the three accused. For this, the trial court can pass an order directly to the authority concerned, they said.

“Do you follow this procedure in other cases as well,” the High Court asked the Delhi Police.

Both Ms. Kalita and Ms. Narwal were granted bail by the Delhi High Court on June 15. Following this, they had moved the local court for securing immediate release order.

Supreme Court to hear Delhi Police appeal on June 18

The Delhi Police have moved the Supreme Court challenging the High Court verdict granting regular bail to the three students who were booked under the anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). The Supreme Court will hear the case on June 18.

A vacation bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and V. Ramaburamanian will hear three separate appeals filed by Delhi Police which said that the High Court’s findings are “perverse and contrary to record” and appeared to be based “more on the social media narrative”.

While granting bail, the High Court gave the Delhi police a dressing down for ‘casually’ invoking provisions of anti-terror laws against the three who had protested against the enactment of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).

“We are constrained to say that it appears that in its anxiety to suppress dissent and in the morbid fear that matters may get out of hand, the State has blurred the line between the constitutionally guaranteed ‘right to protest’ and ‘terrorist activity’,” the High Court had remarked.

The High Court also ruled that no offence under the UAPA was made out against any of the three students.

Ms. Kalita has been named in four FIRs filed in connection with the riots. She was arrested on May 23 last year. She had already got bail in three of the four FIRs, before the High Court also granted her bail in the UAPA case.

Ms. Narwal has three separate FIRs lodged against her arising from her alleged involvement with the protests against the CAA and the NRC. She, too, was arrested on May 23 last year, and had already secured bail in the other two FIRs.

Mr. Tanha was first arrested on May 19 last year in connection with the UAPA case. He already has secured the court’s order for bail in another case.

(With PTI inputs)