Supreme Court to pronounce verdict in bail pleas of Umar Khalid, others in Delhi riots case on January 5

The Supreme Court is scheduled on January 5 to pronounce judgment in the bail pleas of former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student leader, Umar Khalid, and other accused persons in an Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act case related to the alleged “larger conspiracy” behind the February 2020 riots in the national capital.

A Bench headed by Justice Aravind Kumar had reserved its verdict in December 2025 on separate special leave petitions filed by the accused persons against a September 2 decision of the Delhi High Court denying them bail. The High Court had reasoned that “unfettered right to protest would damage the Constitutional framework and impinge upon the law-and-order situation in the country”.

Besides Mr. Khalid, the other appellants include Gulfisha Fatima, Sharjeel Imam, Meeran Haider, Shifa Ur Rehman, Mohd Saleem Khan, and Shadab Ahmed. They have sought bail chiefly on the ground of prolonged incarceration without trial for the past five years. Mr. Khalid, Mr. Imam and the others were accused of being the “masterminds” behind the riots, which left 53 people dead and over 700 injured. Violence had erupted during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens.

The High Court had observed that hatching a conspiracy for violent acts under the garb of the right to protest could not be allowed. Addressing the question of delay, the High Court had justified that a “hurried trial” would be detrimental to the rights of both the accused persons and the State of NCT (National Capital Territory) Delhi, which is the respondent before the apex court.

Senior advocate A.M. Singhvi, for the petitioner side, had wondered aloud in court what “public interest” would be served by the continued incarceration of a woman who had already spent close to six years behind bars as an undertrial. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, also for the petitioners, likened prolonged custody to pre-trial conviction.

The Delhi Police, in response, during the court hearing, played video grabs of Mr. Imam’s public speeches in a bid to buttress their contention that the accused had conspired to instigate communal riots and armed rebellion with the final goal of a “regime change”. “The deep-rooted, premeditated and pre-planned conspiracy hatched by the petitioners resulted in death of 53 persons, large-scale damage of public property leading to registration of 753 FIRS [First Information Reports] in Delhi alone,” the police affidavit had said.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had opened the police’s arguments by submitting that the February 2020 violence was nothing short of an “attack on the sovereignty of the nation”.

The Delhi Police, also represented by Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju, had accused the petitioners of orchestrating delay to use the hold-up as a ground for bail. The prosecution could complete the trial in two years if the accused did not delay the process, Mr. Raju said.

Mr. Khalid’s lawyers had flagged how trial courts in Delhi delivered acquittals in 93 of the over 750 riot cases, while criticising the police of “egregious padding of evidence” leading to “serious erosion of public faith in the investigating agencies and the rule of law”.

His lawyers had quoted 17 of these trial court judgments, spanning from 2022 to 2025, to argue that the police investigation was “shoddy”, including cases in which an investigating officer who claimed he did not know English but nevertheless filed documents and chargesheet in court in the language; eyewitnesses who “suddenly appeared” to identify accused persons without even a Test Identification Parade; and Muslim mobs that chanted ‘Jai Shri Ram’ while indulging in vandalism.