The Right to a Speedy Trial and the Crisis of Prolonged Pre-Trial Detention: A Legal Analysis

Introduction

On July 4, 2026, a trial court in Delhi rejected new bail petitions submitted by Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, both implicated in a “larger conspiracy” filing concerning the North East Delhi riots that happened in February 2020.[i] The Additional Sessions Judge Sameer Bajpai claimed that the precedent set by the Supreme Court’s ruling that refused bail to them on January 5, 2026, was binding and allowed for the renewal of their application only after the testimony of protected witnesses or one year, whichever is happening earlier.[ii] The importance of the ruling arises from the fact that, at the time of its writing, Khalid and Imam had already served a little more than 6 years in judicial custody, and the trial had not even begun. ³ Interestingly, five out of their seven co-accused were granted bail by the same Bench on the very same day. ⁴

In this article, the authors delve into the issue of the extended imprisonment of Khalid and Imam and the fact that their plea for reconsideration has not even been considered by the trial court, and how this is connected to their right to a speedy and just trial as guaranteed by Article 21. The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967 (“UAPA”) has certainly created one of the most difficult bail regimes in Indian criminal law, but it must be remembered that just because something is difficult to understand, it is not something that will take away one’s right to a fundamental freedom. The authors are here to note that the Supreme Court has said on many occasions that the prolonged imprisonment before trial without a fair chance of going to trial is a violation of Article 21, but it has failed to implement this ruling in the Delhi riots situation and the confusing doctrine created should be addressed urgently.

Speedy Trial as Part of Article 21

There is no more argument about the idea that the entitlement of a person to enjoy his right to life and freedom as given by Article 21 of the constitution would certainly involve the right to be tried swiftly. This was first determined in the case of Hussainara Khatoon v. State of Bihar[iii] where the Supreme Court stated that having numerous under trial convicts in prisons for a prolonged period of time is harsh and unreasonable as stated in Article 21. The Court further, in the case of Abdul Rehman Antulay v. R.S. Nayak[iv], given guidelines on how to determine if the delay would amount to a denial of one’s constitutional rights, stressing that there is no determined time set for determining the limits within which the acquitted person is to be tried, and that the case is to be treated based on its facts, including the actions of the accused and difficulty faced in the case.

Even in the presence of specific laws with strict bail conditions, the court has remained steadfast in its opinion that gross and undue delay revives the constitutional right to bail. For instance, in the case of Shaheen Welfare Association v Union of India[v], a case decided under the now-defunct Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, it stated the fact that stringent bail conditions were justified by the seriousness of the crime committed, can only hold true if there is an assurance that the trial would not be delayed excessively. However, if it does not take place, then the prolonged imprisonment also cannot be justified.

The Statutory Override

The provisions of Section 43D (5) of the UAPA are a departure from the laws of ordinary bail. According to this provision, if there are reasonable grounds for believing that the charge against the accused is prima facie true, then the court shall not release him on bail after looking into the case diary or the final report. In the case of National Investigation Agency v. Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali[vi], the Supreme Court read this provision very strictly and ruled that courts shall not adjudicate on the evidence, as if conducting a mini-trial. The court also ruled that even general probabilities and the overall evidence presented by the prosecution must be accepted at face value by the courts, without going into the details of admissibility or reliability. Therefore, since 2019, Watali has served as the benchmark against which any application for bail in a UAPA case has been tested by the courts, and is often used by the prosecuting agencies to avoid any scrutiny.

The problem with applying Watali indiscriminately is obvious – trials under this form of legislation take 5-6 or more years even to reach the stage of framing of charges, thereby allowing an accused to be imprisoned for an indeterminate period on the basis of a prima facie opinion that has not even been tested. It is the very risk inherent in this process that the Supreme Court wanted to tackle in K.A. Najeeb.

 

 

The Corrective Precedent

In the case of Union of India v. K.A. Najeeb[vii], the Supreme Court’s three-judge bench granted bail to an individual involved in a case, where he was imprisoned for more than five years under UAPA, while 276 witnesses have yet to appear. The Court ruled that the mere existence of statutory limitations such as Section 43D (5) does not absolve the constitutional courts of their power to provide bail. The Court pointed out that although the courts have to recognize the legislative intent behind disallowing bail at the beginning of the proceedings, provisions such as Section 43D (5) “will go away” if there is no possibility of early completion of trial beyond a reasonable time, and the time spent in custody is outweighed by the resulting sentence. In this way, Najeeb was able to reconcile the statutory prohibition with the constitutional right, because the latter prevailed only at the beginning, while the constitutional courts have their own residual powers after some time passes.

The Delhi Riots Bail Order

On 5th January 2026, a Division Bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and N.V. Anjaria adjudicated summons by the seven accused faces in the grand conspiracy case regarding the Delhi riots, as a result of the Delhi High Court’s order of September 2025, denying the bail plea of the accused.[viii] The Court granted bail to five of the accused, but denied it in the case of Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam. The bench observed that their level of involvement in the conspiracy was “qualitatively different” than that of the other accused.⁶ The bench also came up with a three-pronged test for the interpretation of Section 43D(5) which includes whether the case has sufficient materials to fulfil the conditions laid down by the statute, whether the role played by the accused has a relevant nexus to the offence rather than a mere association, and whether the provisions of the statute have been met in the case of every individual accused.

In principle, the exercise of a particularized inquiry like this does not violate any tenets of law and is quite necessary – charging individuals with conspiracy cannot lead to collapsing different levels of culpability into an undifferentiated whole. The problem, however, arises at a point where the Court handled the issue of the delay. Even after admitting that Khalid and Imam have been held for more than 5.5 years in custody without trial, and also noting that its own precedents recognize that such delays are subject to Article 21, the Court did not find a justification for granting bail. The Court’s reasoning was as follows: firstly, it cannot be argued that it was solely the prosecution or the court that caused the delay since the defense also raised objections, requested deferrals, and initiated disputes concerning the sequence of argumentation. Secondly, the seriousness of the charges in question must be taken into account when evaluating the significance of the delay.[ix]

Both strands of reasoning are in conflict with the Court’s own judgment. The fact is that acknowledgement of legitimate objections and remedies from the lawyer cannot automatically make the accused responsible for delay and moreover, it is the trial court, and not the lawyer, who makes any decision on delay in the trial. Speaking of gravity, the same Court already decided in Sheikh Javed Iqbal v. State of Uttar Pradesh[x] that serious charges require greater need to complete the trial as quickly as possible and not vice versa. Making the effect of the delay dependent on the gravity of charges leads to the situation where unproven allegations are also valid justification for long-term imprisonment.

Another challenge arises from the broadness of the term “terrorist act” invoked differently by the Court according to the definition provided in Section 15 of UAPA, which broadens the meaning to activities that “deters social life or community functioning” even in the absence of direct violent connotation. The constitutional courts have drawn a line between only creating law and order disturbances, causing disturbances of public order, and putting state’s security into jeopardy since the time of Ram Manohar Lohia v. State of Bihar[xi] when the forms of protest which do not even breach Constitutionally protected rights like holding a sit-in or blocking the road may be criminalized if these categories are intermingled. In 2021, the Delhi High Court in the matter of Asif Iqbal Tanha demonstrated how it legally differentiated between what could be construed as a “terrorist act” in connection with inflammatory words and planning a chakka jam. Therefore, the Supreme Court’s taking the Delhi High Court decision on such an appeal was again interesting because it did not assess the matter closer but reminded that the ruling was not a reliable source of jurisprudence.

A Doctrine in Crisis

Since the order has been issued, the concerns regarding the ruling of January 2026 have started to increase further. It has been observed by the Supreme Court in another case that the judicial reasoning in the case of Gulfisha Fatima v. State (Govt. of NCT of Delhi)[xii] raises concerns. The concerns stated in the words of the court show that the use of the ruling from K.A. Najeeb in the case was not in accordance with the spirit of the precedent. Later, the Supreme Court in May 2026 granted interim bail for six months to co-accused Tasleem Ahmed and Khalid Saifi while hearing their case. This time also, the Supreme Court noted the conflict between Gulfisha Fatima and Syed Iftikhar Andrabi and referred the matter regarding Section 43D (5) to the Chief Justice of India for the formation of a larger bench dealing with the question of statutory bar superseding the right to a speedy trial where such trial is unlikely to conclude soon.

It is against this backdrop that Khalid and Imam approached the trial court afresh in July 2026, arguing that these subsequent developments constituted a “change in circumstances” warranting reconsideration of their bail, and that despite six months having elapsed since the January order, the trial had made no meaningful progress. The trial court, meanwhile, maintained that it was bound by the specific terms of the Supreme Court’s January order, which allowed renewed bail applications only after witness statements had been recorded or one year had elapsed, therefore denying it the opportunity to assess whether or not there had been a change in circumstances even though the very grounds upon which Khalid and Imam had been kept behind bars in the first place were now in doubt, at least according to the reference to a larger bench.

How far is it Justifiable?

This does not mean in any way that the seriousness of the riots that occurred in Delhi in February 2020, which led to the death of fifty-three people and with hundreds injured, must be downplayed or that the rules regarding bail in such cases under the UAPA should be disregarded by the judicial system. The claim here is narrower: that the constitutional mandate of a prompt trial must not be invoked strictly for some under-trials and only nominally for others depending on the seriousness of a charge brought against them.

There are three points that need to be made. Firstly, the inconsistency between the law involving Gulfisha Fatima and Syed Iftikhar Andrabi does not just have an academic significance but also has consequences for both persons in custody while the larger issue of their detention is awaiting adjudication by a superior Bench. One would have expected that the law should operate in such a manner that if two judges from the same Bench doubt the correctness of the interpretation of the reasons for the accused’s continuing custodial detention, those accused should not be forced to undergo the pains of detention during that time.

Secondly, the argument that severity of an offense can lessen the significance of trial delays, if not addressed, endangers Najeeb in much deeper ways than just in a specific case. If constitutional authorities conclude that the more serious the offence, the less significant the delay of trial becomes, the right for a speedy trial, in reality, corresponds to the right of the people only prosecuted for minor crimes and never the other way around. Such an approach contradicts Article 21 that guarantees a speedy trial and highlights the dilemma voiced by the court in Sheikh Javed Iqbal. The right to a fair trial must operate without reference to the severity of the charge since the assumption of innocence at the core of bail conditions must be applied equally.

Most importantly, the State has a constitutional duty when it calls upon the UAPA: the duty to bring an accused to trial without delay. In order to avoid what the American legal folks call undue pre-trial detention; a prosecution cannot seek lengthy stays while at the same time allowing its own trial proceedings to crawl along so slowly as to astonish the most jaded. When the State fails to meet this challenge, the logic of Najeeb dictates that pre-trial detention becomes untenable; it does not mean the State loses faith in the veracity of its accusations but rather asserts that there is no legitimacy to the system when it takes forever to prosecute its own cases.

Conclusion

Safeguarding fundamental rights is not some kind of zero-sum game where an accused person’s freedom is sacrificed if the crime is serious enough. In fact, it is the accused person who needs Article 21 to be enforced strictly and constantly since it is the accused person who receives very little sympathy from the people. The criminal justice system is evaluated not on the basis of how the kind accused person is treated, but on whether identical constitutional protections were granted to an accused person charged with the most serious crimes.

The Supreme Court has spent the last 40 years creating various laws based on the idea that the right to a fair trial and the right to live and be free cannot be separated from each other. Over the years, the court has told everyone that no matter how strict the law is, people have the right to this freedom. The objective of the Supreme Court now is to strengthen the above point and to clarify that what the Court has been referring to in K.A. Najeeb is not a privilege available only to some early inmates, but a standard that everyone must abide by.

 

FAQs

1. What is the Right to a Speedy Trial under Article 21 of the Constitution?

Ans.- An accused person cannot be kept in jail while the criminal proceedings remain stagnant. This will violate their fundamental right. The Supreme Court has consistently held that Right to Life also includes the Right to a Speedy Trial under Article 21.

2. Does the UAPA override the Constitutional Right to a Speedy Trial?

Ans.- No. Although UAPA imposes strict bail conditions, constitutional protection to the accused will prevail under Article 21.

3. Why is obtaining bail under UAPA more difficult than under any other criminal law?

Ans.- Section 43D (5) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, says the court may deny bail if there are reasonable grounds to believe that the accusations are prima facie true.

4. What is the conflict between the Watali and Najeeb decision?

Ans.-Watali judgement adopted a restrictive approach to bail under UAPA, whereas the Najeeb judgement emphasizes constitutional liberty when detention becomes excessively prolonged.

[i] ‘Delhi Riots Case: Court Rejects Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam Bail Pleas’, The Federal, 4 July 2026.

[ii] Delhi Riots larger Conspiracy case: Karkardooma Court rejects bail pleas of Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam’,

ANI, 4 July 2026.

[iii] Hussainara Khatoon vs. State of Bihar, 1979 AIR 1369

[iv] Abdul Rehman Antulay vs. R.S. Nayak, (1992) 1 SCC 225

[v] Shaheen Welfare Association vs. Union of India, (1996) 2 SCC 616

[vi] National Investigation Agency vs.  Zahoor Ahmed Shah Watali, CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 578 OF 2019

[vii] Union of India vs K.A. Najeeb (2021) 3 SCC 713

[viii] Gautam Bhatia, ‘Eyes Wide Shut: The Supreme Court’s Bail Order in the Delhi Riots Cases’, Constitutional Law and Philosophy blog, 5 January 2026.

[ix] Ibid.

[x] Sheikh Javed Iqbal vs. State of Uttar Pradesh 2024 INSC 534

[xi] Ram Manohar Lohia vs State of Bihar 1966 AIR 740

[xii] Gulfisha Fatima vs. State (Govt of NCT of Delhi) 2026 INSC 2