Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra of the Supreme Court on Wednesday recused himself from hearing the bail plea of rights activist Umar Khalid in connection with the February 2020 communal violence in the national capital for which he has been in jail for over two years.

No reason was attributed as there is no protocol for disclosing reasons. Judges normally recuse themselves from matters where they might have either appeared as counsel or for some personal reasons to avoid allegations of conflict of interest.

The matter will now be heard on August 17 by another bench of which Justice Mishra will not be a member.

As soon as the matter came up for hearing, the presiding judge, Justice A.S. Bopanna, informed senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Chandra Uday Singh: “This matter will come up before another bench. There is some difficulty on the part of my brother (Justice Mishra) to hear the matter.”

The bench forwarded the matter to the CJI for constituting an appropriate bench.

Advocate Rajat Nair, appearing for the Centre, informed the bench that the Delhi police had filed their counter-affidavits opposing the bail plea.

On May 18, the apex court had sought the response of the Delhi police on Khalid’s plea for granting him bail. He was arrested on September 4, 2020, under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) following the communal flare-up against the backdrop of the anti-CAA protests.

The then bench of Justices Bopanna and Hima Kohli had at that time, while issuing notice to the Delhi police, posted the matter for further hearing after six weeks.