The protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act that began in late 2019  were a moment of democratic assertion, but they ended in one of the darkest chapters of recent history; the Delhi riots of February 2020, which resulted in 54 deaths, grievous injuries to many people and damage to more than 1500 public and private properties.¹ In the aftermath, more than a total of 757 FIRs were registered and 2174 people arrested. Among these, one case stands out: FIR No. 59/2020.

FIR No. 59/2020 began as a rioting case under the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) but soon swelled into an omnibus conspiracy charge sheet, dragging in provisions of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984 (PDPP Act), the Arms Act, 1959 (Arms Act) and most severely, the infamous Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA).² It is under this FIR that the Delhi High Court, on 2nd September 2025,³ denied bail to nine accused, after they had already spent more than five years in prison as undertrials. This single order tells us more than just the fate of these nine individuals, it is shaping how liberty, free speech, and anti-terror laws are being interpreted in today’s India.

The right to bail under UAPA:

In the aftermath of the 2008 Bombay terror attacks, the Union government moved quickly to tighten its counter-terrorism framework. The result was the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2008. Section 43D(5) instructed courts to deny bail if there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that the accusations against the accused were prima facie true.

At first glance, this may sound like a simple safeguard. But in practice, it created an almost insurmountable hurdle. Judges were now expected to decide by relying largely on the charge sheet filed by investigative agencies. The state’s version of events often became the decisive factor, long before the accused had any chance to contest it in court.

Over the years, this provision has given rise to a complex and, at times, troubling body of jurisprudence. Courts have grappled with where to draw the line: should they accept the state’s narrative at face value, or should they probe deeper before branding a case “prima facie true”? Some rulings have expanded the scope of liberty even under UAPA.

Take the case of Angela Sontakke, accused of spreading separatist Maoist ideology through the Golden Corridor Committee of the banned CPI-Maoist group. She spent nearly five years in custody before a Bench of Justices Gogoi and Pant granted her bail in 2016. The Court reasoned that any alleged offence had to be weighed against two factors: how long the accused had already spent behind bars, and whether a speedy trial was realistically possible. Bail was justified not because the charges vanished, but because indefinite incarceration without trial could not be squared with constitutional guarantees.

It is on the strength of this line of reasoning that courts have, at times, pushed back against the sweeping power of UAPA. And it is against this backdrop that we must now turn to the Delhi High Court’s September 2025 decision in FIR No. 59/2020.

Sharjeel Imam & Ors v. The State of NCT Delhi, CRL.A. 184/2022 & Connected Matters

The judgment runs 133 pages, and it tries to do many things at once: sketch a picture of the riots, spell out how the law on bail works under the UAPA, reflect on the right to protest, explain what counts as conspiracy, and then finally, zoom in on the role of each accused.

The Court starts with the idea that bail is normally the rule and jail the exception, but under the UAPA, this principle is altered. Section 43D(5) makes bail extremely difficult by requiring courts to deny it if the accusations look prima facie true, even on a preliminary reading of the charge sheet. Court doesn’t need to test the prosecution’s case in detail at this stage; if the material points towards guilt on its face, bail cannot be granted. The judges while acknowledging that some of the accused had already spent more than five years in jail and that the trial, with nearly 900 witnesses, will take a long time, laid down the principle that delay and long incarceration, by themselves, cannot override the weight of allegations in terror-related cases.

On the right to protest, the Court recognized it as a constitutional guarantee under Articles 19(1)(a) and (b). Citizens have every right to oppose government policy, sit on dharna, and march in protest. But this right, the Court said, is not absolute. It comes with “reasonable restrictions,” especially when demonstrations cross into violence, block essential services, or threaten public order and sovereignty. The court seems convinced with the prosecution’s case, and on the prima facie agrees with the view that the Delhi riots were not just an outburst of anger on the streets; they were a carefully organized escalation, where peaceful sit-ins provided the backdrop for planned violence.

The court then turned to the issue of what evidence does the prosecution need to have in order to establish a conspiracy. The Court explained that conspiracies are by nature secretive and rarely backed by direct proof. Instead, they are pieced together through circumstantial evidence like WhatsApp chats, call records, witness testimonies, meetings, pamphlets, and speeches that, when seen together, show a shared intention. Here, the prosecution’s theory of four phases of conspiracy, beginning with mobilization in December 2019 and culminating in the February 2020 violence, was considered sufficient at the bail stage. The judges stressed that they were not conducting a full trial but that the material placed on record had enough weight to establish prima facie complicity.

Finally, the Court turned to the individual appellants. Umar Khalid was portrayed as the “intellectual architect,” linked to speeches, WhatsApp groups, and planning meetings. Sharjeel Imam was described as providing the ideological push, through pamphlets, fiery speeches in Aligarh and Gaya, and messages where he allegedly referred to himself as a mastermind. Gulfisha Fatima was noted for mobilizing women protestors and attending meetings where violence was allegedly discussed. Others, including Shadab Ahmed, Khalid Saifi, Saleem Khan, Shifa-ur-Rehman, Meeran Haider, and Athar Khan, were tied to specific roles ranging from funding to logistics to on-ground mobilization.

By the end of the order, the Court pulled these strands together to say that what happened in Delhi was not a protest spiralling out of control but a premeditated conspiracy. And because UAPA requires bail to be denied when there are reasonable grounds to believe accusations are true, the Court held that the accused must remain in custody.

Reimagining Liberty

This case was only about bail; a procedural relief, not a final verdict. It has however become a story of how pre-trial detention can turn into punishment, and how the High Court’s approach leaves us wondering about the place of constitutional liberty in our justice system.

The court took 407 days to decide the bail application, more than a year of hearings, recusals, and delays. For the accused, this means another stretch of incarceration as an undertrial. The Supreme Court⁴ has long warned that “even one day in jail is a day too many” when a trial is yet to begin. Back in 1979, the Hussainara Khatoon⁵ case laid down that prolonged undertrial detention violates the right to life and liberty under Article 21. And more recently, in Satender Kumar Antil and Arvind Kumar Singh, the Court reiterated that liberty cannot be hostage to delay. Yet, in this case, delay became the default.

When it came to evaluating evidence, the High Court said it would not conduct “mini-trials”; which is a settled principle at the bail stage. And for some accused, like Gulfisha Fatima, the court kept things broad and non-specific, simply relying on the idea of conspiracy law. But when it turned to Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, the approach shifted. WhatsApp chats, speeches, and call data records were scrutinized line by line, and inferences of a “central role” were drawn from circumstantial details. Imam’s pamphlets and speeches were dissected with a similar intensity. It’s here that the line between a prima facie glance and a deeper trial-like examination began to blur. Khalid’s February 2020 Amravati speech became a centerpiece. He invoked Mahatma Gandhi, calling for non-violence and rejecting hate. Yet the judgment read this as incitement, suggesting a subtext of conspiracy.

What makes the decision stand out even more is how it diverges from recent jurisprudence. In case after case; from Bhima Koregaon accused like Vernon Gonsalves and Shoma Sen, to Athar Parwez in the PFI cases, courts have granted bail after prolonged incarceration, stressing that Section 43D(5) of the UAPA must not be applied mechanically. Even the Delhi High Court, in granting bail to Tanha, Kalita, and Narwal, emphasized that protest cannot be equated with terrorism. Against this background, the September 2, 2025 judgment seems like an outlier.

So, where does that leave us? The judgment doesn’t just decide bail; it sketches a larger picture about how dissent, delay, and liberty interact under UAPA. And it leaves us with a difficult question: is this the balance our democracy truly needs or is it a warning sign of something deeper?

I’m not suggesting that the Court overstepped its authority, it absolutely has the power to deny bail under the UAPA. What makes this judgment harder to digest is the prolonged timeline of the case, combined with conflicting approaches in similar matters, which leave the reasoning feeling uneven and, at times, difficult to reconcile. In this piece, I’ve tried to lay out the Court’s reasoning and the facts that make the order challenging to absorb. But rather than offering a conclusion myself, I want to leave you with a question: looking at this judgment and how it has unfolded, are we heading in the right direction, or is there something deeper at stake in the way liberty and dissent are being navigated in contemporary India?

About the Author

Hasi Jain is a final-year law student at BML Munjal University, with a deep passion for civil liberties and state accountability. Her academic and personal pursuits focus on the critical areas of bail reform and free speech, examining how legal frameworks shape justice and democratic freedoms in India. Her work blends rigorous legal analysis with a vision for a more just society.

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Footnotes

1. Paragraph 3, Sharjeel Imam & Ors v. The State of NCT Delhi, CRL.A. 184/2022 & Connected Matters ↩

2. Paragraph 1, Sharjeel Imam & Ors v. The State of NCT Delhi, CRL.A. 184/2022 & Connected Matters ↩

3. Sharjeel Imam & Ors v. The State of NCT Delhi, CRL.A. 184/2022 & Connected Matters ↩

4. Satender Kumar Antil v. CBI (2022) ↩

5. Hussainara Khatoon v. Home Secretary, State of Bihar (1979) ↩