Two Lucknow social workers who have been in custody for over a fortnight now following protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act remained in prison on Monday despite getting bail two days ago as the administration and police dragged their feet on verifying related documents.

Sources close to S.R. Darapuri and Sadaf Jafar said the authorities were meticulously verifying all the papers related to their bail bonds, including registration of vehicles and bank fixed deposits.

Darapuri, a former IPS officer, is 77. Congress member Sadaf’s two children — one 16 and the other 12 — have been waiting at home for their mother since her arrest on December 19.

Darapuri was arrested a day later.

“We can hope now that both would be released on Tuesday morning. The police told us they would send by post the FDs and registration papers of the vehicles for verification and wait for the response from the banks and the transport office by post. But we somehow convinced some people in authority to allow us to do the verifications directly from the banks and the transport office. But we completed the procedure very late. We were told (by the district and the jail administration) that they wouldn’t be released at night,” Darapuri’s elder son Ved Kumar told The Telegraph at 6.36pm on Monday.

“There was no problem in releasing them in the evening but the jail authorities appeared unconvinced.”

Sadaf’s elder sister Naheed Varma said: “It is a tedious process that we are following. There is endless paper work to do before my sister is released.”

An officer at Hazratganj police station said: “Thirteen people were arrested during anti-CAA protests and granted bail on January 4. Of them, six had got their bail bonds ready by late Monday afternoon. These six people are residents of six different areas under six different police stations in Lucknow. The police can expedite the process if there are one or two bonds to verify. But it will obviously take time when there are so many.”

Moreover, these are processes of the court and the police have a limited role to play, said the officer who asked not to be named.

On January 4, while granting bail to Darapuri and Sadaf on two personal bonds of Rs 50,000 each, the additional sessions court had observed that a protest against the act and the National Register of Citizens was not a crime.

The court also said the police had not submitted any proof to substantiate their claim that the two had been involved in violence on December 19.

Darapuri and Sadaf have both been booked under a host of penal code sections, including 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapons), 152 (assaulting or obstructing public servant when suppressing a riot), 307 (attempt to murder), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), 506 (criminal intimidation), 188 (disobeying an order promulgated by a public servant), 435 (mischief by fire or explosive substance) and 120B (criminal conspiracy).

Additional sessions judge Sanjay Shankar Pandey granted them bail after an earlier plea was rejected on December 23 by a chief judicial magistrate.

Sadaf had said in her plea that a peaceful protest was going on at Parivartan Chawk, Lucknow, on December 19 where thousands of men, women and children had taken part.

“Anti-social elements sneaked into the protest and turned violent,” she had said, adding the police could easily identify them but arrested her instead.

She also said she was preparing a video of the violence to help the police identify the “anti-social elements”.

Darapuri had said the police had put him under house arrest on December 19; so he couldn’t have been present at the protest site.

The government’s counsel, however, claimed there was enough evidence against Darapuri to prove that he was involved in a criminal conspiracy to provoke people.

The court in Darapuri’s bail order had questioned the imposition of Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code on December 19 and pointed out that according to the case diary of December 27, the prohibitory order against a gathering of five or more people was imposed on December 16 in view of the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid issue.

But no proof had been given that people were informed about the existence of the prohibitory order on December 19, the court said.