A Political Element Cannot be Ruled Out in the Lack of Bail to Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam | Sarim Naved

Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam have been in prison for the last five years. Their bail has been denied repeatedly. Last week their five colleagues, also arrested in the Delhi riot case of 2020, were granted bail. Why haven’t they?

Lawyer Sarim Naved, who fights both civil and criminal cases, analyses this in a podcast discussion with Sidharth Bhatia. While bail not jail is a general principle, “the courts have a lot of discretion in this matter”, he said. But he says, “the way the current government behaves, yes, a political element cannot be ruled out.”

Also, he says, times change and “our understanding of civil liberty shifts from time to time.” He points to cases from the 1990s when “somebody said Khalistan Zindabad and the Supreme Court said this does not amount to terrorism.”

But, he says that the cases of Khalid and Imam cannot be discussed by themselves without considering the larger systemic issues of police investigations and the judiciary. “Even in UAPA, there are people who are waiting for a longer period for their trials to start.”