Delhi court gives cops a week’s time to reply to Nikita’s bail plea

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Tuesday gave a week’s time to Delhi Police to file their reply to the anticipatory bail plea of Nikita Jacob, a co-accused in the farm agitation toolkit case along with climate activists Disha Ravi and Shantanu Muluk.


Additional sessions judge Dharmender Rana will next hear the case on March 9, when he is also scheduled to take up Muluk’s application for anticipatory bail.

When Jacob’s advocate, senior counsel

Rebecca John

, said she wanted her client’s plea to be heard as a standalone case, the court said she could present her arguments separately on that date. Judge Rana directed Delhi Police to hand over a copy of its reply to Jacob’s bail plea to her counsel.

Sessions judge Rana had granted bail to Disha, who was arrested from Bengaluru in the same case, on February 23. Citing “scanty and sketchy evidence available on record”, he said there was no palpable reason to breach the general rule of bail “against the 22-year-old young lady with absolutely blemish-free antecedents and having firm roots in society”.

The prosecution had pushed its case on the basis of alleged “links” between

Disha

and the “pro-Khalistani group”

Poetic Justice Foundation

, which was associated with the creation of the toolkit first put out on Twitter by Greta Thunberg. The court, however, didn’t find any “direct link” between the PJF and Disha.