“Bail Is the Rule, Jail an Exception…”: Supreme Court Questions its January Verdict Denying Bail to Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam

The Supreme Court of India on Monday strongly reaffirmed the principle that “bail is the rule and jail is an exception”, even in cases registered under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), while sharply questioning the reasoning adopted in its January verdict denying bail to former JNU student Umar Khalid and activist Sharjeel Imam in the Delhi riots conspiracy case.

The observations came during a hearing in which a bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan granted bail to Jammu and Kashmir resident Syed Iftikhar Andrabi in a narco-terror case investigated by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). While granting relief to Andrabi, the bench expressed “serious reservations” over the legal reasoning used by another two-judge bench in January that had rejected bail pleas filed by Khalid and Imam.

The court said the earlier judgment had failed to properly apply the legal principles laid down in the landmark 2021 ruling in Union of India vs KA Najeeb, where a larger three-judge bench held that prolonged incarceration and delay in trial could outweigh statutory restrictions on bail under UAPA.

Reading out portions of the judgment in open court, Justice Bhuyan stressed that the right to bail cannot be reduced to a mere technicality. “Bail is not an empty statutory slogan. It is a constitutional principle flowing from Article 21, and the presumption of innocence is the cornerstone of any civilised society governed by the rule of law,” Justice Bhuyan observed.

The bench further emphasised that anti-terror legislation does not automatically eliminate constitutional protections. “Even under UAPA, bail is the rule and jail an exception. Bail can only be denied in a particular case depending on the facts of that particular case,” the court said.

In a significant criticism of the January 5 ruling, the bench also objected to restrictions imposed on Khalid and Imam, which allowed them to renew their bail pleas only after protected witnesses were examined or after one year had elapsed.

According to the court, such conditions amounted to an unacceptable curtailment of personal liberty. The January verdict, delivered by Justices Aravind Kumar and NV Anjaria, had denied bail to Khalid and Imam in the larger conspiracy case linked to the 2020 Delhi riots, while granting relief to co-accused Gulfisha Fatima, Meeran Haider, Shifa-ur-Rehman, Mohd Saleem Khan and Shadab Ahmed.

At the time, the court had held that Khalid and Imam allegedly played a “central and formative role” in the conspiracy behind the northeast Delhi riots and ruled that prolonged incarceration alone was insufficient grounds for bail where a prima facie case existed.

That judgment had relied heavily on the Supreme Court’s 2019 ruling in NIA vs Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali, which significantly tightened bail conditions under UAPA by limiting judicial scrutiny at the bail stage to whether accusations appeared prima facie true.

However, the present bench cautioned that later rulings by smaller benches appeared to be weakening constitutional safeguards recognised by larger benches. “This case raises an important question concerning the interface between Section 43D(5) of the UAPA and the constitutional guarantee of personal liberty under Article 21,” Justice Bhuyan said. The court further questioned “the propriety of smaller benches progressively hollowing out the constitutional force of a larger bench decision without ever expressly disagreeing with it”.

The judges also criticised the “twin-prong test” evolved in the 2024 Gurwinder Singh vs State of Punjab case, which suggested courts must first establish whether allegations are prima facie true before considering ordinary bail factors. “With respect, this test flows neither from the text of Section 43D(5) of the UAPA Act, nor from Najeeb,” Justice Bhuyan said.

The bench underlined that judicial discipline requires smaller benches to follow binding precedents laid down by larger benches. “A decision made by a bench of lesser strength is bound by the law declared by a bench of greater strength,” the court held, adding that smaller benches cannot “dilute, circumvent, or disregard” the ratio of a larger bench judgment. Reiterating that KA Najeeb continues to remain binding law, the court said prolonged incarceration without timely completion of trial cannot justify indefinite detention under anti-terror legislation.

The observations came while granting bail to Andrabi, who has been in custody since 2020 in an NIA case linked to alleged narco-terror financing in Jammu and Kashmir. While the Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court had rejected his bail plea in 2025 citing the seriousness of allegations and alleged terror links, the Supreme Court noted that no contraband had been directly recovered from him and that he had already spent nearly five years behind bars. The bench also pointed to low conviction rates under UAPA. “From 2019 to 2023, NCRB data show the conviction rate in Jammu & Kashmir stood at 0.89% in 2023… All-India figure is between 2% and 6%. The annual rate of acquittal in Jammu & Kashmir is therefore nearly 99%,” Justice Bhuyan observed. The court ultimately held that the Watali judgment cannot be used to justify endless detention.