The Delhi High Court on Tuesday told the prosecution that it cannot endlessly hear submissions against the bail applications of activists Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and six others in the 2020 riots case, Bar and Bench reported.

A bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Shalinder Kaur interjected Special Public Prosecutor Amit Prasad while he was reading extracts from speeches allegedly made by Imam in connection with the matter. The bench asked Prasad how much longer his arguments would go on for.

“This has to end! This needs to end now,” Bar and Bench quoted the court as saying. “It cannot go on endlessly. We cannot give you so much time.”

Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma, representing the Delhi Police, also sought time to make submissions in the case, PTI reported.

“You have to finish now,” the news agency quoted Chawla as saying. “This can’t go on endlessly.”

The bench listed the next hearing on February 12.

The court was hearing the bail petitions filed by Khalid, Imam, Mohd Saleem Khan, Shifa ur Rehman, Shadab Ahmed, Athar Khan, Khalid Saifi and Gulfisha Fatima, who have been in jail for more than four years.

They were booked for offences under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, Arms Act and the Indian Penal Code in connection with the clashes that broke out in North East Delhi in February 2020 between supporters of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act and those opposing it.

The violence had left 53 dead and hundreds injured. Most of those killed were Muslims.

The Delhi Police have claimed that the violence was part of a larger conspiracy to defame Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and was planned by those who organised the protests against the amended citizenship Act.

The eight activists sought bail primarily on the grounds of delay in their trial and also argued for parity with the other co-accused in the case – student activists Asif Iqbal Tanha, Devangana Kalita, and Natasha Narwal – who had been granted bail in June 2021.

At the last hearing, the court had asked the police to keep its arguments short, Bar and Bench reported. The matter was not at a stage of the trial that warranted lengthy arguments, the bench said.

“How much are you going to take?” the court asked. “This way it will not even register much with us. Give a chart. We are losing you here in between here. We just wanted to have birds-eye of the evidence you have, not that you be commenting on each and everything like this.”