CAA protest was secular, chargesheet is communal: Umar Khalid’s lawyer tells court

Seeking bail in the Delhi riots larger conspiracy case involving charges under UAPA, student activist Umar Khalid’s lawyer today argued before a Delhi Court today that while the protests against Citizenship Amendment Act were secular, it is the chargesheet filed by the Delhi Police which is communal.
Senior Advocate Trideep Pais argued before Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat that while the allegations in the chargesheet were a fertile imagination of the Investigating Officer, neither there was any presence of Khalid in Delhi at the relevant time nor was there any direct violence attributed to him including no traces of funding.
Umar Khalid Passes Test Of Supreme Court’s Watali Judgment: Pais Pais began by submitting that the strongest test under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 is the judgment delivered by the Supreme Court in National Investigation Agency v. Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali.
According to Pais, Umar Khalid passes the said test as laid down by the Apex Court.
Reliance was made on the relevant portions from the judgment wherein the Court held that “By its very nature, the expression “prima facie true” would mean that the materials/evidence collated by the Investigating Agency in reference to the accusation against the concerned accused in the first information report, must prevail until contradicted and overcome or disproved by other evidence, and on the face of it, shows the complicity of such accused in the commission of the stated offence.”