NEW DELHI: Referring to the contradictory orders given by Supreme Court in the matter of bail to the accused on the ground of delay in trial and long incarceration for UAPA offences, which have been referred to a larger bench for authoritative pronouncement, former student activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam have moved SC for bail in 2020 Delhi riots cases.The accused submitted that two co-accused, including Tasleem Ahmed, were granted bail by SC on the grou-nd that determination of the issues by the larger bench would take time, and they could not be made to suffer continued incarceration.

Seeking parity with the co-accused, Sharjeel Imam, who has already spent six years and nine months in custody, said in his petition, filed through advocate Fauzia Shakil, that two co-accused in the same FIR were released on interim bail by the court on May 22 under a principle which applies to him in greater degree.The accused moved SC after their plea for bail was rejected by the trial court and Delhi High Court on the ground that the apex court had purportedly set a deadline of Jan 5, 2027, for them to file a bail petition.The petition asked “whether the principle recognised by this Court in Tasleem Ahmed v. State order dated 22.05.2026, that an accused cannot be made to suffer continued incarceration merely because an important question of law has arisen for authoritative settlement, can be withheld from the petitioner alone by reference to the role attributed to him, when the question referred to concerns the correctness of the very judgment which declined his bail and relief in Tasleem Ahmed case was granted without any examination of role?”It further argued, “Whether liberty reserved by this Court in a judgment declining bail, to renew the prayer for bail at a defined point, operates as a bar upon the statutory jurisdiction of the Special Court and of the High Court to consider an application for bail founded on supervening circumstances be-fore that point, when the same paragraph of the judgment holds that pre-trial detention cannot be permitted to continue without regard to the progress of the trial and that Article 21 operates as a continuing check against continued incarceration without substantial progress of the trial?”