Former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Umar Khalid on Monday urged the Supreme Court to allow an open court hearing and oral arguments in his review petition challenging the denial of bail in the alleged larger conspiracy case linked to the 2020 Delhi riots.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Khalid, referred the matter before a bench led by Justice Aravind Kumar, who also authored the January 5 order refusing bail, and requested that the review be heard in open court instead of being decided in chambers.
“I wanted to make a mention about a review petition…it is listed on Wednesday. My request is…if you could have it in an open Court,” submitted Sibal.
“We will look into the paper, and if required, we will call it,” said Justice Kumar.
Review petitions are ordinarily decided in chambers by judges, without oral arguments or open court hearings.
Khalid has filed a review petition against the Supreme Court’s January 5 judgment, which had denied him bail under the stringent provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in the Delhi riots conspiracy case.
A bench of comprising Justice Kumar and Justice NV Anjaria held that the material on record disclosed a prima facie case against Khalid and co-accused Sharjeel Imam, attributing to them a “central and formative role” in the alleged conspiracy. The court had observed that their involvement extended to “planning, mobilisation and strategic direction,” placing them on a different footing from other accused.
Rejecting the plea for bail, the Supreme Court had ruled that prolonged incarceration alone cannot justify release in cases governed by the UAPA, where courts must first assess the gravity of allegations and whether the statutory threshold for bail is crossed.
“In prosecutions implicating the sovereignty, integrity or security of the State, delay cannot operate as a trump card,” the judgment had said, emphasising the need for a case-specific evaluation of the accused’s role.
Khalid has been in custody since September 13, 2020, while Imam has been incarcerated since January 28, 2020. All accused in the case are facing prosecution for allegedly being part of a coordinated conspiracy that culminated in communal violence in northeast Delhi in February 2020, leaving 53 people dead and hundreds injured.
While denying bail to Khalid and Imam, the court had granted relief to five co-accused — Gulfisha Fatima, Meeran Haider, Shifa-ur-Rehman, Mohd Saleem Khan and Shadab Ahmed, holding that the allegations against them were of a “subsidiary or facilitative nature”.
The bench had clarified that criminal law does not mandate identical outcomes merely because allegations arise from the same set of facts, and that Khalid and Imam stood “qualitatively on a different footing”.
The January 5 order had also imposed a restriction on Khalid and Imam, permitting them to renew their bail pleas only after the examination of protected witnesses or upon the completion of one year, whichever is earlier.
The bail pleas arose from a September 2025 order of the Delhi High Court, which had refused bail to nine accused and described Khalid and Imam as the “intellectual architects” of the violence. While Khalid was not physically present in Delhi during the riots, Imam was already in custody when violence broke out. The accused argued in the top court that they were exercising their constitutional right to protest and had no role in fomenting violence. They further contended that their prolonged incarceration amounts to punishment without trial, with multiple supplementary charge sheets filed and dozens of witnesses still to be examined.
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The Supreme Court, however, held that in cases governed by the UAPA, long incarceration by itself cannot override the statutory bar where the court is satisfied that a prima facie case exists against the accused.
It also rejected the contention that Khalid and Imam had remained in custody solely due to prosecutorial inertia. It noted that the record, including findings of the Delhi High Court, did not support an overarching portrayal of a “dormant trial” or “unjustified delay” sufficient to override the statutory embargo under Section 43(D)(5) of the UAPA, which imposes a stringent legal regime for bail and puts the onus on the accused to satisfy the court of their innocence.
