New Delhi: While making the closing argument for denying bail to students and activists accused of planning the Delhi riots of 2020, the solicitor general of India, Tushar Mehta, told the Delhi High Court that the “four weeks” that accused Sharjeel Imam spoke of in a speech he made on 23 January 2020 referred to US President Donald Trump visit to India—“clearly indicating a timeline for execution of conspiracy”.

Article 14 checked Imam’s speeches and found the “timeline” referred to the four weeks the Supreme Court gave to the union government on 22 January 2020 to respond to over 100 petitions challenging the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), a controversial law that made religion the basis of granting Indian citizenship, which he opposed. 

Imam first spoke of this in a speech he made on 22 January 2020 in Asansol, West Bengal, saying, “Did you know today was a Supreme Court hearing. The court has given four weeks to the government,” and asked what would happen in states like Assam and Uttar Pradesh during that time. 

Imam then spoke about it on 23 January 2020 in a speech he made in Gaya, Bihar, making comments that some might find distasteful and disparaging of the Supreme Court, while citing judgments such as outlawing triple talaq and granting the land on which the Babri Masjid stood to the Hindu parties, to illustrate what he perceived as judicial bias.

Mehta’s argument before Justices Navin Chawla and Shalinder Kaur on 9 July 2025 about a reference Imam made to timing the riots with Trump’s visit is weakened considerably by the fact that the dates for the US president’s visit were not public until 11 February 2020, two weeks after the Delhi police had already arrested him on 28 January 2020.

While making a fleeting reference to “some matter” pending in the Supreme Court, Mehta said that Imam was “essentially referring to a potential date being declared” because it was in the news that he may come in four weeks. 

Mehta’s arguments are another example of the conjectures, inferences and fabrications on which the Delhi police have built their case, attempting to pin the riots that erupted on 23 February 2020 in northeast Delhi on the mostly Muslim students and activists who opposed the CAA.

The police alleged that the anti-CAA protests were a front for planning the riots, and the plan all along was to organise roadblocks that would turn violent during Trump’s visit. 

Aside from misrepresenting the Imam’s speech, the arguments were contrary to the progressive evolution of bail jurisprudence. Instead of evidence, they were filled with hyperbole, such as “globally defame our nation” and “global media takes note of this,” which was irrelevant in determining bail after five years. 

As the Delhi High Court said while granting bail to Devangana Kalita, Natasha Narwal and Asif Iqbal Tanha in June 2021 in the same case, “We are afraid, that in our opinion, shorn-off the superfluous verbiage, hyperbole and the stretched inferences” there was no case of terrorist activity and the State has “blurred the line between the constitutionally guaranteed right to protest and terrorist activity”.

Justices Siddharth Mridul and Anup Jairam Bhambhani said the “making of inflammatory speeches, organising chakkajams (wheel jams, or road blocks) are not uncommon when there is widespread opposition to Governmental or Parliamentary actions.”

‘It Was Very Shocking For Us’

Noting that this was the first time the State had forced this link between Imam’s speeches and Trump’s visit, Imam’s lawyer, Ahmad Ibrahim, said, “It was very shocking for us because this was the closing argument of the state, and we couldn’t rebut it because the judgment was reserved.” 

"The reference to 'four weeks' in the speech was clearly in the context of that adjournment, and not, as suggested, a call for unlawful action,” said Ibrahim. 

“The SG is a very senior officer. His statement can prejudice the court,” he said. “If the judgment comes based on a wrong, misrepresented statement against the accused person, it is a travesty of justice.”

Tushar Mehta’s Response 

Responding to Article 14's request for clarification on linking Imam’s four-week remark to Trump’s visit, Mehta said, “I have argued both—court date and tentative date of Trump’s visit correlating with other evidence after dates of visits were declared.”

We responded by asking Mehta how the state could link the four weeks in Imam’s speech to Trump’s visit, given that he was clearly referring to the court date, and what other evidence linked him to Trump’s visit. 

We have reviewed the so-called evidence against him—four protected witness statements (which show nothing incriminatory), his own Facebook posts, WhatsApp messages, and four speeches, which some may find unpleasant and distasteful to hear, but are protected under India’s fundamental right to free speech. 

None reveal a link to Trump’s visit. 

After informing the court that Imam’s mention of four weeks referred to a “potential date”, Mehta said he wanted to “connect the dots” by referencing a message sent to one of the WhatsApp groups of anti-CAA protesters, which said Trump will be in Delhi and asked whether the anti-CAA protesters could take action that would affect Delhi.  

Justice Navin Chawla asked Mehta why the person who wrote the message was not an accused in the case. 

Of the 53 people killed in the riots, three-quarters were Muslim. 

Sixteen of the 18 charged in the conspiracy case are Muslim, but the police have not explained how a plot allegedly hatched by Muslims ended with far more Muslims than Hindus dead. 

In Violation Of ‘Bail, Not Jail’

When Justice Navin Chawla reserved the bail order, those awaiting his decision—Gulfisha Fatima, Khalid Saifi, Umar Khalid, Shifa-ur-Rehman, Athar Khan, and Mohammed Saleem Khan have been jailed for more than five years without trial. Sharjeel Imam and Umar Khalid have spent close to five years behind bars in this case. 

Some of them have had their bail plea pending in the Delhi High Court for three years.

These pending bail pleas violate repeated Supreme Court orders dating back to the 1970s for quick bail—“bail, not jail”—(here, here and here), and more recent jurisprudence (here, here and here) that supports granting bail even in cases involving serious charges, such as terrorist activity under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. 

The latest emphasis on bail, not jail, being the norm came from Chief Justice B R Gavai on 7 July 2025, where he observed that the judiciary had “somewhat forgotten” the cardinal legal principle that “bail is the rule and jail the exception”.

While the development of bail jurisprudence that is fair and humane, balancing public interest with individual liberty, has not been a straight line. Much depends on the particular circumstances of each case and the judge's discretion.

However, the Supreme Court has recently delivered several judgments granting bail in cases under the UAPA, taking into account factors such as delays, length of imprisonment without trial, and how long it will take for the trial to begin. 

Mehta said, “If you are doing something against the nation, then you better be in jail till you are acquitted or convicted”, and “preparing for dividing the nation, cutting the nation based on a particular religion” disqualifies one for bail. 

"Long incarceration is certainly a ground, but not in such matters where you are ensuring that the country bleeds violence and wanting to break the country in two parts", he said.

First, except for bluster, there is no argument or evidence to show how the riots, confined to some pockets of the national capital, would have divided the country and broken it into two. Second, no jurisprudence mandates a denial of bail in matters involving national security.

In Union of India vs K.A. Najeeb (2021), the Supreme Court granted bail to the accused who had been jailed for more than five and half years without a trial, ruling that speedy trial was a right under Article 21 and prolonged delays in trials can be grounds for bail even under stringent laws like the UAPA. 

In Javed Gulam Nabi Shaikh vs  State of Maharashtra and Another (2023), the Supreme Court granted bail to an undertrial prisoner of four years, noting the trial court has not been able to even proceed to frame charge, and, “Howsoever serious a crime may be, an accused has right to a speedy trial as enshrined under the Constitution of India.”

“Article 21 of the Constitution applies irrespective of the nature of the crime,” the court said.

In the Delhi riots conspiracy case, however, the Supreme Court has not adhered to its own jurisprudence, with political activist Umar Khalid’s bail plea bouncing between different judicial benches for nine months before he withdrew his petition in February 2024 and re-applied for bail in the trial court. 

More Than 5 Years Later, No Trial 

The conspiracy case was registered on 6 March 2020. The first chargesheet was filed on 16 September 2020, and four more followed on 22 October 2020, 23 February 2021, 2 March 2022, and 7 June 2023, three years and three months from the date of the first information report (FIR). 

Arguments to frame charges were scheduled to begin in September 2023 but were delayed because the prosecution refused to disclose whether it had completed its investigation into those accused in the conspiracy case. It took a year for the prosecution to concede that the investigation into the accused had been completed, but they could still include more people in the chargesheet. 

For several months now, additional sessions judge Sameer Bajpai has been hearing arguments on charge, but given that there are 18 accused, and each lawyer takes two or three hearings, in addition to the routine adjournments and delays, the proceedings will last a very long time before the trial can begin. 

When we asked Shahrukh Alam to comment on the solicitor general’s view that the accused should be in jail until acquitted or convicted, the Supreme Court advocate said, “That's a very odd formulation,  even for the state”. 

“They are admitting that there is a fair possibility that he would eventually be acquitted,” said Alam. “Thus, explicitly using process as punishment against a political dissenter.”

Lack Of Evidence 

Plagued by the absence of medical, forensic and physical evidence, we have reported how the police have built this case, which includes grave charges such as engaging in a terrorist act, sedition, and murder, on inferences, assumptions, and countless anonymised witness statements, many of which were recorded months after the riots and have been improved. 

There is no credible evidence that can establish a link among all the suspects, their participation in the violent events that transpired on the ground, or their association with the weapons and rioters responsible for the chaos. 

The police have linked various WhatsApp groups that were coordinating the protest and have generated extensive WhatsApp message records; however, except for a few provocative messages (including those from individuals not accused in this case), they don’t reveal a conspiracy to incite violence. 

There is no explanation as to why some organisers and participants in the CAA movement have been blamed for instigating the riots, while others who were part of the same WhatsApp groups, attended the same meetings, and were present at the same protest sites have not. 

Mehta cited some protected witness statements that described some accused making provocative statements about escalating the protests, rioting and breaking CCTV cameras, but the prosecution has not built a structured argument demonstrating that these remarks led to a specific incident, who was involved and who was injured. 

For instance, the prosecution has included several anonymous witnesses who claimed that Gulfisha Fatima, an MBA graduate, instructed people to collect red chilli powder, glass bottles, acid bottles, sticks and stones and prepare to obstruct the roads. 

Her lawyers have argued that there was no recovery of red chilli powder or acid from the riot scene. 

Despite the dearth of evidence and the fact that he was locked up a month before the riots and Trump’s visit, Imam has been jailed for more than five years because of his speeches; mostly the one he gave in Aligarh on 16 January 2020, in which he called for mainland India to be cut off from northeast India. 

But the prosecution has not shown any impact of his speeches made hundreds of kilometres away from northeast Delhi, a month before the riots.

Fabrications 

Mehta’s use of the words “tentative” to us and “potential date” before the court is quite possibly strategic, as the Delhi police have been caught in a lie while trying to force a connection between the accused in the alleged conspiracy and Trump’s visit. 

In a case of rioting in the Khajuri Khas area, the Delhi police were caught fibbing when they said that Umar Khalid, Khalid Saifi, and former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Tahir Hussain met on 8 January 2020 at office of the now banned Islamist organisation, Popular Front of India (PFI), in Shaheen Bagh to discuss the funding for engineering riots when Trump visited India on 24-25 February. 

The Quint pointed out that the first media report on Trump’s visit did not appear until The Hindu on 13 January, five days after the 8 January meeting. The visit dates were reported on 11 February. 

While the allegation about the 8 January meeting was retained in the so-called conspiracy case, the connection with Trump’s visit was quietly dropped. 

Before he was incarcerated in September 2020, Khalid said that he had never met Hussain or been to the PFI office.

One protected witness — “Saturn” — provided varying accounts of the alleged meeting in four statements over a five-month period in the Khajuri Khas and conspiracy cases. 

More Than 5 Years & 5 Months In Jail

The primary evidence against Khalid is the speech he gave in Amravati, Maharashtra, on 17 February 2020. It is not inciting by any stretch of the imagination. 

While many people find Imam’s speeches distasteful, the Supreme Court has allowed far more inflammatory speech, including calling for a separate homeland for Sikhs 1995), raising slogans like “Khalistan zindabad”,  “raj karega khalsa”, and “Hinduan nun Punjab chon kadh ke chhadange hun mauka aya hai raj kayam karan da” (we will drive Hindus out of Punjab and establish our rule), saying “some more overt act” was required to warrant an arrest (Balwant Singh and Anr vs State of Punjab 1995). 

The Supreme Court has also ruled that the violence caused must have a direct nexus with the speech or expression (S. Rangarajan vs. P. Jagjivan Ram, 1989).   

Imam made his speeches in January 2020 and was arrested on 28 January 2020 in a case registered in Delhi,  followed by cases in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Uttar Pradesh. 

The riots erupted on 23 February 2020. 

The PhD candidate at Jawaharlal Nehru University was arrested on 25 August 2020 in the alleged conspiracy. 

Imam has spent more than five years and five months in jail, which includes more than four years and ten months in the conspiracy case without trial. 

(Betwa Sharma is managing editor of Article 14.)

Get exclusive access to new databases, expert analyses, weekly newsletters, book excerpts and new ideas on democracy, law and society in India. Subscribe to Article 14.