Delhi News Highlights: Temperature in Capital expected to touch 38°C, AQI remains poor at 250

A man accused in the larger conspiracy case in connection with the 2020 Delhi riots has moved the Delhi High Court seeking interim bail for two weeks, saying he needs to arrange for money to pay the fees of his college-going daughter.

A trial court in Karkardooma had rejected the interim bail plea filed by Mohd Saleem Khan on March 25.

A bench of Justices Chandra Dhari Singh and Anup Bhambhani, which took up the plea briefly, orally said the interim bail plea “goes where the main bail plea is.”

The regular bail pleas of several of the larger conspiracy case accused are before a specially constituted division bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Shalinder Kaur. Read

The Delhi High Court would examine the plea of AAP leader Somnath Bharti who on Thursday challenged the election win of BJP's Satish Upadhyay from Malviya Nagar in the recently held assembly polls.

Justice Jasmeet Singh posted the matter on April 8 for Bharti to submit certain documents over his claim of a pending criminal case against Upadhyay.

Upadhyay defeated Bharti by winning the Malviya Nagar seat in the national capital with 39,564 votes in the Delhi assembly elections held in February.

Bharti plea's has accused Upadhyay of “corrupt practices” under the Representation of People Act.

The plea also claimed there was a pending criminal complaint or FIR against the BJP leader.

Senior advocate Rajiv Nayar, representing Upadhyay, opposed the claim of any pending FIR and asked, "Where is the FIR?" Nayar called it a "defective petition".

There has to be some material and details on which the allegation is based, Nayar said.

The court had initially said Bharti should file an affidavit giving the details on the allegations levelled by him in the petition.

Delhi on Thursday recorded a minimum temperature of 19.5 degrees Celsius, 1.4 degrees above the season's average.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) forecasted strong surface winds during day time.

Relative humidity at 8.30 am was 32 per cent.

The maximum temperature is expected to settle at 38 degrees Celsius, the IMD said.

The air quality was recorded in the poor category as the Air Quality Index (AQI) at 9 am stood at 250.

(PTI)

Delhi High Court on Thursday sought response of the city police on a plea by activist Sharjeel Imam challenging a trial court's order to frame charges against him in the 2019 Jamia violence case.

Justice Sanjeev Narula also refused to stay the trial court proceedings in the case at this stage.

The court issued notice to the police on the main petition as well as on the stay application and listed the matter for further hearing on April 24.

Imam has challenged the trial court's March 7 order in which it had said that he was not only an instigator but also one of the "kingpins of a larger conspiracy to incite violence" and had ordered to frame charge against him in the case.

The trial court had observed that Imam's speech of December 13, 2019 near Jamia Millia Islamia University was a "venomous", "pitted one religion against another" and was "indeed a hate speech".

The court was hearing the case against Imam and others against whom a case was registered at the New Friends Colony Police Station under various provisions of the IPC, Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act (PDPP) and Arms Act.

(PTI)

Two weather stations in Delhi saw above normal day-time temperatures as the maximum at Ridge and Pitampura touched 40 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, as per the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

The Met Office had warned that temperatures would see a sharp increase this week with double the number of heatwave days over the Northwest plains.

Safdarjung, which is representative of the Capital, reported 38.9 degrees Celsius — around seven degrees above normal. The minimum temperature was observed near normal at 17.7 degrees Celsius.