Denial of bail to Umar Khalid a ‘travesty of justice’? Here is how conspirators of Delhi anti-Hindu riots delayed trial, indulged in forum shopping and more

On 2nd September, the Delhi High Court denied bail to Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and others in the 2020 northeast anti-Hindu Delhi riots larger conspiracy case. The decision was based on three decisive reasons that are the gravity of the offence, inability to prove parity and delay engineered by the co-accused, both those in jail and those who are out on bail, in front of the Trial Court.

While parity was discussed in our previous report, it is essential to discuss the gravity of the offence, forum shopping by Kapil Sibal in the Supreme Court of India and delay designed by the co-accused as pointed out by the Delhi High Court while rejecting the bail plea of Tasleem Ahmed. The bench stressed gravity under Section 43D(5) and rejected parity; separately, as the High Court explained in Tasleem Ahmed, the trial delays were largely of the accused camp’s making.

Defence claimed Khalid and Imam were engaged only in ‘lawful dissent’

During the arguments, the defence teams of both Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam argued in front of the Delhi High Court that they were engaged only in lawful dissent and peaceful protests. They maintained that there was no evidence that could place them at the scene where the riots broke or at the meetings where the violence was directly plotted.

In Umar Khalid’s case, the defence claimed that his Amravati speech of 17th February 2020 called for “peaceful, Gandhian methods”, and no explicit incitement to violence was made. Sharjeel Imam’s counsels emphasised that he was already detained by the police and remained in custody from 28th January 2020, weeks before the main riots. Therefore, he could not be linked to their planning or execution. They also challenged the reliability of protected witnesses and called their statements “concocted, coerced and repetitive”.

The defence further argued that even if some of the material was accepted at face value, it would only fall under Section 13 of UAPA and not the graver Chapter IV terrorist offences that invoked the strict bar under Section 43D(5). They relied on precedents such as KA Najeeb to argue that bail can be granted when incarceration is prolonged and the trial shows no end in sight.

Prosecution counter

The Solicitor General and Special Public Prosecutor opposed these submissions firmly. They argued that the conspiracy was neither accidental nor spontaneous but “well-orchestrated and strategically timed to coincide with the State visit of the President of the USA”.

They pointed to the formation of multiple WhatsApp groups by Imam and Khalid after the Citizen Amendment Bill (CAB) was passed in December 2019. The circulation of pamphlets openly calling for disruption and a sequence of speeches urging chakka-jams and violence escalation were also mentioned.

According to the State, Khalid was a “veteran of sedition” who had instructed Imam to mobilise universities and Muslim-dominated neighbourhoods. Imam’s own pamphlet, distributed on 13th December 2019, explicitly spoke of Muslims being disenfranchised and called for disruptive chakka-jams, stating “Thousands of Muslim youths are ready to disrupt Delhi which will give international media attention to our issues”.

The State further relied on multiple protected witnesses who testified that the two appellants portrayed the government as “anti-Muslim” and urged protestors to “spill blood” to make the government bend.

Court’s observations

In the judgment, the Division Bench of Justice Navin Chawla and Shalinder Kaur reaffirmed earlier findings that the accusations against Khalid and Imam were prima facie true. The judgment emphasised that “Prima facie it appears that the Appellants were the first ones to act after the CAB was passed in early December 2019, by creating WhatsApp groups and distributing pamphlets… including the disruption of essential supplies”.

Furthermore, the judgment categorically pointed out that the alleged “inflammatory and provocative speeches delivered by the Appellants, when considered in totality” prima facie indicate towards their “role in the alleged conspiracy”.

On Imam’s claim of being in custody before the riots and Khalid’s absence from the riot sites, the judgment stated that it is irrelevant whether the appellant was “physically present at the protest sites or in meeting post 28.01.2020”. The Court noted that mere absence “may not be sufficient to mitigate their role, as they have been alleged to be the key conspirators in planning and designing the scheme of events”.

The judgment also invoked Section 43D(5) of UAPA, reminding that once accusations appear prima facie true, the embargo on bail squarely applies.

Forum shopping and Kapil Sibal’s role in delaying bail

During the hearing at the Delhi High Court, Khalid’s team argued that his long incarceration was partly due to delays in the Supreme Court hearing his Special Leave Petition (SLP) after the Delhi High Court’s October 2022 denial of bail. They claimed that the repeated adjournments and the eventual withdrawal of the SLP in February 2023 were forced by the slow pace of the proceedings and changes in circumstances. At that time, senior advocate Kapil Sibal told the Bench at the Supreme Court that Khalid would “try his luck in the trial court” given this change.

The defence presented this narrative to the trial court and later to the High Court as evidence that Khalid was not responsible for the delay, but rather a victim of systematic adjournments. They argued that this justified bail, particularly when the trial itself had yet to conclude.

Prosecution counter

The defence’s argument was dismantled by the prosecution with dates and facts. Special Public Prosecutor Amit Prasad highlighted that seven of the fourteen adjournments in 2023–24 were at the request of Khalid’s side itself. Far from being a victim of delay, Khalid was gaming the system by seeking adjournments strategically, prosecutors argued.

It was also pointed out that after the High Court rejected his bail plea in October 2022, Khalid waited for almost six months before approaching the Supreme Court in April 2023. The question raised was, if he was genuinely aggrieved by the delay, why wait so long?

The withdrawal of the SLP was not about delay but about forum shopping. From October 2022 to February 2024, Khalid’s counsel Kapil Sibal had sought repeated adjournments and then pulled out when it became clear that the judicial climate was not in favour of his client. Furthermore, Khalid’s counsel claimed “change in circumstances” as one of the reasons behind withdrawing the bail plea from the Supreme Court. This so-called change in circumstances coincided with two developments. Firstly, a change in the Bench after Justice Aniruddha Bose stepped down, and cases were listed before Justice Bela Trivedi. Khalid’s lawyers resisted this and sought repeated de-tagging and relisting.

Secondly, a change in law after a Supreme Court ruling in January 2024 in the Gurwinder Singh case under UAPA clarified that in such cases, “jail is the norm and bail the exception”, explicitly endorsing the Watali precedent where the Supreme Court had said that the court would not satisfy the prima facie test unless there is at least a surface analysis of the probative value of the evidence at the stage of examining the question of deciding the bail.

With these clarifications, the defence’s argument that “bail is the norm” was untenable. Thus, the withdrawal before Justice Trivedi and Justice Pankaj Mithal was seen less as necessity and more as a tactic, trying one court, then another, hoping for a favourable bench.

Court’s observations

In its 2nd September 2025 judgment, the Delhi High Court revisited the long bail saga of Umar Khalid. The Bench recalled that his bail application had been rejected by the High Court in October 2022, where the Court, after examining the material, had already found a prima facie case made out against him. The judges emphasised that the arguments advanced before them now had already been raised and considered earlier, and that the earlier conclusion continued to hold good.

The judgment also noted that Khalid had preferred a Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court, which was later withdrawn upon his counsel’s request on account of what they described as a “change in circumstances”. After this withdrawal, he filed a fresh bail plea before the trial court, again relying on delay and alleged changes in law as grounds.

While the judgment did not explicitly state that the withdrawal of the SLP had no bearing on the earlier finding, its reasoning made that effect clear. By affirming once more that the case against Khalid was prima facie true, the High Court indicated that shifting forums or citing supposed changes in circumstances could not undo the substance of its earlier conclusion.

In practical terms, Khalid could not delay hearings through adjournments and withdrawals and then rely on the resulting passage of time as justification for bail. The strategy of forum shopping, far from helping him, only weakened his claim that his prolonged custody was unfair.

Delays engineered by co-accused outside jail

While seeking bail, the defence repeatedly leaned on Article 21 and the right to a speedy trial. They cited KA Najeeb and other rulings to argue that five years of incarceration without conclusion of trial was excessive. They highlighted that charges were not yet framed and 700 witnesses were to be examined. “There is no likelihood of the trial being concluded in the foreseeable future,” the defence submitted, urging that this delay must tilt the balance in Khalid’s favour.

The prosecution, however, pushed back and cited trial records. In Tasleem Ahmed’s judgment, it was noted that on 5th August 2023, compliance under Section 207 CrPC was completed and the trial court ordered day-to-day hearings on charge from 11th September 2023. But when the day arrived, accused out on bail, Devangana Kalita, Natasha Narwal and others, objected, claiming the investigation was still open.

In the Trial Court’s summary it was stated that, “Despite giving considerable period of time for starting the arguments on charge, no adjournment application was moved on time… the accused persons will later claim bail on the ground of delay in trial.” Within a week, on 18th September 2023, a larger group including Meeran Haider, Athar Khan, Khalid Saifi, Faizan Khan, Ishrat Jahan, Sharjeel Imam, Safoora Zargar, Saleem Malik, Shifa-ur-Rehman, Shadab Ahmad and Gulfisha Fatima also sought deferment. This meant that even though the prosecution was ready to argue charges, the defence deliberately blocked the process.

The prosecution stressed that some accused, including Umar Khalid himself and Tahir Hussain, had actually said they were ready to proceed on 18th September 2023. But the applications filed by Devangana and Natasha derailed the process.

Both the Sessions Court in May 2024 rejecting Khalid’s bail and the Delhi High Court in September 2025 noted that the delay narrative was hollow. The Tasleem Ahmed judgment, which came out the same day, put the issue beyond doubt by reproducing trial court order sheets. On 11th September 2023 and 18th September 2023, objections were raised by Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal, among others, stalling arguments on charge. From January to August 2024, “the accused who got bail were not permitting the argument on charge to commence on the ground that the investigation had not been completed”. On 4th October 2024, the trial court recorded its distress, “Despite a consensual schedule, none of the counsel is ready… any delay will be viewed by the court seriously”.

The High Court therefore concluded that it was the accused camp, especially those already on bail, who engineered delay. In Tasleem Ahmed’s case, the Court said, “Material on record indicates that certain accused persons have got bail and some of the accused persons are in prison. Those accused persons who got bail are trying to delay the arguments on charge on the ground that the investigation is still pending. The arguments on charge are being delayed by the accused persons who are out on bail at the cost of those accused persons who are in prison. Despite orders from the Court directing the counsels for the accused persons to decide amongst themselves as to how and in what order the arguments on charge will be advanced by the accused, there seems to be no consensus among them.”

The larger strategy

The sequence of events exposes a deliberate pattern. Those on bail delayed proceedings by filing speculative applications questioning the investigation’s completeness. Those still in jail, like Umar Khalid, then sought to leverage that very delay as a ground for bail. The High Court refused to permit this circular logic and held that the bar under Section 43D(5) remained intact as the accusations were prima facie true.

Documents:

Judgment on bail pleas of Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and others.

Jugdment on bail plea of Tasleem Ahmed.

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