After the Supreme Court denied bail to Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam —incarcerated for over five years — in the Delhi riots conspiracy case, critics online have called it a "travesty of justice" and how the judicial system has let them down.
On 5 January 2026, while the Supreme Court granted bail to five others namely, Gulfisha Fatima, Shifa ur Rehman, Meeran Haider, Shadab Ahmad and Salim Khan, the bail pleas of Khalid and Imam were rejected. The Court emphasised that the bail petitions of each accused must be examined individually, given the differences in their alleged roles.
The bench, comprising Justices Aravind Kumar and Prasanna B Varale observed that, "Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam stand on a qualitatively different footing as compared to other accused."
Several lawyers, journalists, academics have spoken critiqued this point, such as senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai who wrote on X:
"...Why then for five years, were the accused treated jointly as part of a common conspiracy, denied bail repeatedly and not seen to be on a different footing?"