After half a decade without trial, Umar Khalid’s case under scrutiny

Two-week release brings personal relief amid an unresolved prosecution

After half a decade behind bars without even trial, Umar Khalid’s brief interim bail for his sister’s wedding has refocussed attention on prolonged pre-trial detention under India’s most stringent security laws.

On December 16, when Umar Khalid walked out of jail to attend his sister’s wedding, it was not freedom that awaited him but a pause in his life behind bars. A court at Karkardooma in eastern Delhi granted him 14 days of interim bail up to December 29, strictly limited to family functions, closely monitored by the police and bound by conditions that barred him from social media or public interaction.

In its order, the court was careful to underline that this temporary relief had no bearing on the substantive case against him. Yet the moment carried a weight far greater than its duration. After more than five years in custody without the trail even having commenced, Khalid’s brief release reopened a question that is increasingly haunting India’s justice system. How does a democracy justify keeping an accused behind bars for half a decade without beginning the trial meant to determine guilt or innocence?

Khalid was arrested on September 13, 2020 in connection with the February 2020 Delhi riots, one of the most violent episodes of communal unrest the capital had witnessed in decades. The riots had left 53 people dead and hundreds injured. Though several others, especially leaders of Bharatiya Janata Party, including Anurag Thakur, Member of Parliament, were seen proactively calling for violence with slogans like ‘Goli Maro Gaddaron Ko’ or ‘shoot the traitors’, the Delhi Police acted in a partisan manner, mainly targetting and arresting Muslims, while letting the ruling party members go scot-free, irrespective of their role, direct or indirect, in fanning the violence.

Also Read: Five years on, Delhi riots victims continue to await justice

Khalid was charged under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code, including sedition, murder, promoting enmity between religious groups, unlawful assembly, and rioting. More significantly, he was booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, a draconian law which makes obtaining bail a near-impossibility, accused of being part of what the prosecution described as a larger conspiracy to orchestrate the violence. Since that arrest, Khalid has remained incarcerated for over 63 months, while the trial has yet to begin.

The latest interim bail order was widely debated, not because it altered Khalid’s legal position, but because it exposed the extraordinary length of his pre-trial detention. Senior journalist and political analyst Bilal Sabzwari framed the issue in explicitly limited terms.

“Khalid is an accused in the alleged larger conspiracy behind the 2020 Delhi riots, a serious case involving charges under UAPA. His main regular bail pleas are still pending, including before the Supreme Court. Granting interim bail for a family event does not affect or weaken the larger legal process. It is a limited exercise of judicial discretion,” Sabzwari tells Media India Group.

Sabzwari emphasises that courts across jurisdictions routinely grant short-term relief for weddings, funerals or serious illness, even in grave cases. “Family commitments are important and humane, even for those in custody, especially after long detention without trial conclusion,” he says.

At the same time, he acknowledges that critics raise concerns about leniency under stringent laws like UAPA and question whether such decisions are applied consistently.

“Both concerns are part of the broader legal and public discussion around bail, justice and human rights,” Sabzwari said.

Khalid has spent five years in prison without the prosecution leading its first witness. From a civil liberties perspective, this prolonged detention has increasingly been described as punishment without conviction. Advocate and political analyst Samman Singh situates Khalid’s case at the intersection of liberty and security.

“From a civil liberties viewpoint, Khalid’s prolonged detention of over 63 months without trial exemplifies process as punishment. It undermines the presumption of innocence and the right to a speedy trial under Article 21,” Singh tells Media India Group.

Singh pointed out that UAPA fundamentally alters the logic of bail. Under Section 43D 5, courts can deny bail if the prosecution’s case appears prima facie true, without weighing evidence as would occur during trial.

“The state views the riots as a premeditated assault on sovereignty. That is why the law allows denial of bail on a low threshold. Once that bar is crossed, the accused can remain incarcerated for years while the case crawls forward,” Singh adds.

Also Read:Delhi Riots: Victims’ battle for justice & compensation continues

In Khalid’s case, the chargesheet reportedly runs into thousands of pages, with allegations based on speeches, WhatsApp chats and statements of alleged witnesses. The defence has repeatedly argued that these materials do not establish violence or conspiracy, but such arguments are typically deferred to trial. The problem is that trial itself has remained elusive. Singh underlines the paradox this creates.

“Denying regular bail while allowing interim relief for family events demonstrates judicial caution that prioritises security over liberty. The court is signalling that it will not loosen the core restraints, even while acknowledging humanitarian considerations,” he adds.

Beyond individual liberty, the delay raises deeper questions about consistency. “There is a growing perception of selective justice. In some serious cases, accused persons secure bail quickly. In others, especially under UAPA, detention becomes effectively indefinite. This inconsistency erodes faith in the system,” he further adds.

For many observers, the Khalid case has become a symbol of how dissent is treated in contemporary India. A former student activist associated with protest politics, Khalid’s incarceration has been read by critics as a warning signal.

“The case sends a message about the cost of activism. It creates a chilling effect, particularly for young people and marginalised communities and tests the judiciary’s commitment to human rights,” says Singh.

As Khalid’s case drags on without trial, to some, it has come to symbolise the slow but certain erosion of procedural safeguards. Sajid Abbas, political analyst who examines the relationship between state power and individual liberty, sees the delay as part of a larger structural problem.

“In Khalid’s case, the prolonged detention without trial does not look like an aberration. It reflects a deeper disorder in how our institutions now function,” Abbas tells Media India Group.

According to Abbas, delays of this scale are rarely accidental. They emerge from a system where harsh laws, administrative inertia and political incentives align in ways that disadvantage the accused.

“Successive governments have learnt to draft and deploy uncompromising security laws during moments of public anger or moral panic. These laws are rushed through Parliament with minimal debate and even lesser foresight. Once enacted, they are rarely rolled back, even when misuse becomes apparent,” Abbas adds.

UAPA, he says, exemplifies this pattern. Provisions that invert the logic of bail, combined with an overburdened judiciary, ensure that incarceration stretches on regardless of trial progress.

Also Read:Delhi riots: Serious human rights abuses by Delhi Police, says Amnesty

Abbas pointed to a crucial imbalance of incentives. “The State has almost no incentive to move swiftly. Every additional month in prison is a cost borne only by the accused, not by the investigating agencies or the prosecution. The process itself becomes the punishment,” says Abbas.

Abbas adds that endless adjournments, delays in framing charges and procedural complexity quietly extend detention without attracting public scrutiny.

These delays are compounded by systemic weaknesses. India’s courts are burdened with millions of pending cases and special courts handling UAPA matters often juggle multiple complex prosecutions simultaneously. Judicial reform, Abbas says, remains politically unattractive.

“Judicial and police reform does not win elections. Visible development projects do. The slow decay of the criminal justice system remains out of sight and therefore easy to neglect,” he adds.

The consequences of this neglect are not abstract. “When a citizen can spend years in prison under laws like UAPA without trial commencing, constitutional promises begin to sound like empty words,” Abbas said.

He warned that prolonged detention disproportionately harms those without money, influence, or elite legal representation.

“For an ordinary person, mounting a long and expensive defence under draconian provisions is almost unimaginable,” he adds.

Khalid is hardly the only activist to spend a long time in jail without any trial as the current regime has skin-thin tolerance for dissent. A number of historians, civic rights activists as well as academicians and writers have been in jail for their beliefs for over a decade now, with little sign of relief as even the Supreme Court seems to have washed its hands off protecting the fundamentals of the Indian Constitution and democracy.