Context

• The Supreme Court of India’s January 5, 2026 order in the Delhi Riots larger conspiracy case, which granted bail to five accused but denied it to Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, has renewed debate on the interaction between criminal procedure, personal liberty, and state power.
• The controversy arises from the prolonged detention of seven students and activists arrested during the 2020 protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), despite the absence of a completed trial.

Right to Speedy Trial and Reason Behind Delayed Trial

• Right to Speedy Trial
  • More than five years have elapsed since the arrests, with the trial still pending commencement.
  • Indian constitutional jurisprudence locates the right to speedy trial within Article 21, making procedural delay a direct infringement of liberty.
  • When pre-trial incarceration approaches half a decade, detention becomes indistinguishable from punishment and undermines the presumption of innocence.
  • The Supreme Court has previously stated that if the state cannot ensure trial within a reasonable period, its opposition to bail lacks legitimacy.
  • In this case, the Court concluded that delay justified bail for five accused but not for Khalid and Imam.
  • This distinction rested on the assertion that the latter two allegedly conceptualised the disturbances, placing them on a different footing.
  • Yet such differentiation relies on unproven allegations and grants excessive weight to prosecutorial assertion.
  • Liberty cannot be contingent upon the gravity of accusation alone, for this would empower the state to curtail freedom simply by escalating charges.
• Reason Behind the Delay
  • The Court also observed that delay was partly attributable to the accused, but the pace of proceedings remains fundamentally under judicial control.
  • Judges can refuse adjournments and streamline hearings. The presence of hundreds of witnesses suggests the trial is unlikely to conclude swiftly, creating the risk of prolonged incarceration without adjudication.
  • The Court’s suggestion that bail may be reconsidered after another year implies that five-and-a-half years have not yet crossed a constitutional threshold, raising the spectre of detention spanning a decade or more without verdict.

Terrorism, the UAPA, and Expansive Interpretation

• The order also raises structural concerns regarding the interpretation of Section 15 of the UAPA, which defines terrorism.
• Alongside explicit elements involving weapons or violence, the statute includes the residual phrase by any other means.
• Criminal law traditionally requires narrow construction of ambiguous provisions to safeguard individuals against state overreach.
• Instead, the Court adopted a broad reading that could encompass non-violent protest actions such as chakka jams, vastly expanding the statute’s scope.
• Such interpretation vests wide discretion in the executive, enabling it to classify forms of civil disobedience under anti-terror law rather than under ordinary criminal provisions.
• The broader the definition, the greater the risk of suppressing dissent and discouraging democratic mobilisation.
• Moreover, the interpretation directly affects bail due to Section 43D (5), which bars bail if a prima facie case exists based solely on prosecution material.
• A wider definition of terrorism makes it easier to satisfy the prima facie threshold, thereby entrenching pre-trial detention and shifting power from judiciary to prosecution.
• Across legal systems, stringent statutes demand cautious judicial construction. Departing from this principle accelerates the collapse of procedural safeguards and normalises preventive detention over judicial adjudication.

Deference, Evidence, and the Language of Conspiracy

• The factual assessment within the order reflects a deferential approach toward prosecutorial narratives.
• The available evidence indicates organisational efforts surrounding anti-CAA protests, including coordination of demonstrations and chakka jams.
• These activities fall within the constitutional right to protest, even when disruptive. In the absence of direct evidence linking the accused to violence, the prosecution invoked a theory of conspiracy, alleging managerial responsibility for the riots.
• Conspiracy theories often operate as substitutes for evidentiary gaps. Throughout history, from political trials in colonial contexts to episodes like the Dreyfus Affair, conspiracy has served as a legal framework for incarcerating individuals without concrete proof.
• When liberty is at stake and trial delays are acute, judicial scrutiny should intensify rather than retreat.
• Accepting speculative inferences without robust evidence risks turning accusation into pretext and detention into indefinite punishment.

Conclusion

• The continued imprisonment of Khalid and Imam exemplifies the dangers posed by expansive statutory interpretation, prosecutorial discretion, and judicial deference.
• When protest merges with terrorism and delay merges with punishment, constitutional commitments to liberty, dissent, and due process erode.
• Correcting this imbalance is a matter of democratic principle and requires judicial willingness to prioritise liberty over speculative narratives of national security.