New Delhi. The police have opposed the new bail petitions filed in the Delhi High Court on behalf of Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, accused of conspiring in the 2020 riots in Delhi. Delhi Police said that Imam and Khalid are the masterminds of Delhi riots and their new bail petitions are illegal and an attempt to mislead the court. Even before this, bail petitions were filed twice on behalf of Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, but all their applications were rejected from the lower court to the Supreme Court.
According to Bar & Bench, Delhi Police told the High Court that in this case, the Supreme Court had granted bail to five other people accused of riots in January 2026, but Khalid and Imam did not get any relief. After this the accused have again filed bail petitions. Police said Imam and Khalid misunderstood the Supreme Court's instructions in the January 2026 order. That order said that a fresh bail application could be made only when either the examination of the witnesses was completed or a year had passed after the order, whichever was earlier. This condition has not been fulfilled yet.
Delhi Police in its reply also said that a reading of the main part of the Supreme Court's judgment clearly shows that the court had upheld the imposition of Section 43D(5) of the UAPA in the case of the appellant. The police have also opposed the argument of the two accused in which they had cited the Supreme Court's decision in the case of co-accused Tasleem Ahmed. In this, due to different opinions in the Syed Iftikhar Andrabi and Gulfisha Fatima cases, the Supreme Court had sent the case to a larger bench and granted interim bail to Ahmed. Police say that sending the case to a larger bench does not affect the rule laid down by the Supreme Court in January 2026 in the case of Khalid and Imam.
