The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to cancel the bail granted two years ago to anti-CAA activists Devangana Kalita, Asif Iqbal Tanha and Natasha Narwal in a Delhi riots case, saying it saw “no purpose in keeping these matters alive”.

A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Ahsanuddin Amanullah, however, said it was not making any observations on the interpretation made by Delhi High Court while granting them bail on June 18, 2021, with regard to the applicability of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

The high court had observed: “We are constrained to express, that it seems, that in its anxiety to suppress dissent, in the mind of the State, the line between constitutionally guaranteed right to protest and terrorist activity seems to be getting somewhat blurred. If this mindset gains traction, it would be a sad day for democracy.”

Aggrieved by the high court’s observation and the grant of bail, Delhi police had appealed in the Supreme Court immediately, but the top court had refused to stay the order. The apex court had however, on June 18, 2021, ruled that the high court order shall not be treated as a precedent.

When the matter came up for hearing on Tuesday, the bench briefly heard senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the accused, and solicitor-general Tushar Mehta, representing the Delhi police, and passed the following order:

“The impugned order is an extremely elaborate order of bail interpreting various provisions of the UAPA. In our view the only issue which is required to be examined in such matters is whether in the factual scenario an accused is entitled to bail or not.

“It is this argument which persuaded us while issuing notice on 18.06.2021 to observe that the impugned judgment cannot be treated as aprecedent and may not berelied upon by any of the parties in any other proceedings. The idea was to protect the State against use of the judgment on enunciation of law qua interpretation of the provisions of the UAPA in a bail matter.

“The respondents have been on bail now for almost two years. We see no purpose in keeping these matters alive. We may notice that one of the co-accused has filed an application seeking in a way to interpret our interim directions dated 18.06.20213 and submitting that the said observations were coming in the way of seeking bail. The applicant is a co-accused. If the co-accused is entitled to a plea on parity, that is for him to make and the Court to consider.

“We want to make it clear at a cost of repetition that the purpose of the interim order dated 18.06.2021 was that the expounded legal position regarding statutory interpretations in a bail matter should not be utilised in proceedings either of co-accused orany other person or any other matter. With the aforesaid clarification the interim directions dated 18.06.2021 are made the final directions in the matter.

“On having noticed the aforesaid, we close the present proceedings. The special leave petitions and the application for intervention are accordingly disposed of. We make it clear that thus we have not gone into the legal position regarding statutory interpretation one way or the other. Pending application stands disposed of.”