New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday refused to grant interim bail to Popular Front of India (PFI) leader OMA Salam, arrested in a case registered under the anti-terror law, UAPA, against the banned organisation and its members.

A bench of Justices Prathiba M Singh and Amit Sharma rejected Salam’s plea seeking a release for two weeks, saying he is “a person of great influence” who managed and administered the PFI for years, and enlarging him on interim bail would not only entail flight risk but also the possibility of several witnesses being influenced.

Salam had sought two weeks’ interim bail on the ground that his daughter died in April and his wife was in a “depressive state”.

Dismissing the plea, the court noted that Salam was given custody parole when his daughter died in an accident in April and his wife’s mental condition was neither debilitating nor of a nature that required an urgent intervention.

“Upon considering the fundamental ground of interim bail made by the appellant, that is, his wife not being well, the court on perusal of the medical records as also the overall facts of the present case holds that the present case does not reveal a situation which justifies grant of bail,” the bench said in its decision.

“The appellant in the present case is a person of great influence and was the chairman of the PFI, which is now a banned organisation. The observations of the Kerala High Court sufficiently capture the events that took place on September 23, 2022, that is, one day post the arrest of the appellant herein. The observations of the Kerala High Court reveal the nature of influence that the appellant wields,” it observed.