Jailed activist Umar Khalid (file photo)
New Delhi: A Delhi court on Tuesday, May 19, dismissed the bail plea of jailed activist Umar Khalid, accused in the 2020 northeast Delhi riots.
Additional Sessions Judge Sameer Bajpai was hearing Khalid’s application seeking 15 days of interim bail to attend the 40-day post-death ritual (Chehlum) of his uncle and take care of his mother, who has to undergo surgery.
Khalid and others were booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), an anti-terror law, and provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for allegedly being the “masterminds” of the 2020 riots that left 53 people dead and more than 700 injured in northeast Delhi.
The violence had erupted during widespread protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
This comes a day after the Supreme Court questioned its January 5 judgment denying bail to activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case, underlining that “bail is the rule and jail is the exception” is not merely an empty statutory slogan.
A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan, while granting bail to Handwara resident Syed Iftikhar Andrabi in a narco-terror case probed by the NIA, said that it has “serious reservations” on the reasoning adopted by a different bench of the top court.
On January 5, a two-judge bench comprising Justices Aravind Kumar and NV Anjaria refused bail to Khalid and Imam and said they can file fresh bail applications following the examination of protected witnesses after one year.
In its order pronounced on Monday, May 18, Justice Bhuyan criticised various aspects of the January 5 judgment, including foreclosing the right of the two appellants to seek bail for a period of one year. He said that the January 5 judgement did not properly follow the judgment in the KA Najeeb case, which recognised long delay in trial as a ground for bail in cases under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and can override the statutory restrictions on bail under Section 43D(5) of the Act.
“We have serious reservations on various aspects of the judgment in the Gulfisha Fatima case, including foreclosing the right of the two appellants to seek bail for a period of one year.
“The judgment in the Gulfisha Fatima case would have us believe that Najeeb is only a narrow and exceptional departure from Section 43-D(5) justified in extreme factual situations. It is this hollowing out of the import of the observations in the Najeeb case that we are concerned with,” the bench said.
(With inputs from PTI)
This post was last modified on May 19, 2026 4:49 pm