A photo of Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam.
The Supreme Court on Monday, May 18, expressed strong disapproval of a January 2026 judgment that had denied bail to activist Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam in the Delhi riots larger conspiracy case, saying the two-judge bench that decided the matter had failed to properly follow a binding three-judge bench ruling on bail in UAPA cases.
A bench of Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan made these observations while granting bail to Syed Iftikhar Andrabi, a Jammu and Kashmir resident held in NIA custody for over six years on charges of funding terrorism through narcotics proceeds.
The court took specific issue with the Gulfisha Fatima judgment, which had denied bail to Khalid and Imam, and the 2024 Gurwinder Singh judgment, holding both had departed from the binding 2021 three-judge bench ruling in Union of India v. KA Najeeb, which established prolonged pre-trial incarceration as a ground for bail even under the stringent UAPA.
(This is a breaking story.)
This post was last modified on May 18, 2026 12:11 pm