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Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam's new bail requests in the Delhi riots conspiracy case were denied by a Delhi court on Saturday.
The order was issued by Sameer Bajpai, Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ).
The Court noted that it was constrained by the Supreme Court's January 2026 ruling that denied Khalid and Imam's requests for bail earlier this year.Importantly, this Court has no option but to adopt the judgment dated 05.01.2026, as passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court, whereby the petitions of both the applicants were dismissed," noted the Court.
It further highlighted that the Supreme Court's judgment had given down explicit rules regulating when they could seek bail again, leaving the trial court with no opportunity to accept the present applications. "In the aforementioned ruling, the Hon'ble Supreme Court dismissed the applicants' pleas and stated that the applicants would only be free to reapply for bail before the jurisdictional court after the prosecution had finished questioning the protected witnesses, or after a year had passed since the date of the order, whichever came first. Therefore, this Court cannot consider the applications and issue bail to the applicants in accordance with the aforementioned ruling of the Hon'ble Supreme Court," the Court clarified.
The Court declared, "In fact the applications are not maintainable and they are hereby dismissed," dismissing the pleas.
Imam and Khalid petitioned the sessions court for release after a Supreme Court bench recently questioned another top court bench's decision to deny them bail in January 2026.
Their plea emphasized that there has been no significant advancement in the trial proceedings, with the arguments on the charge still unfinished, even after the Supreme Court's ruling refusing them bail was rendered more than six months ago.
In the case, they claimed to have spent almost six years behind bars.
Umar Khalid was represented by Senior Advocate Trideep Pais, who contended that Khalid should be granted bail following the Supreme Court's decision in the Andrabi case, where the reasoning behind Khalid and Imam's denial of bail was questioned.
Pais further stated that Khalid and Imam are not subject to the court's embargo, which prohibits them from requesting new bail for a year or until witnesses have been questioned.
Speaking on behalf of Sharjeel Imam, attorney Talib Mustafa contended that a larger bench of the Supreme Court should also take into consideration the possibility of imposing a ban on filing for bail for a year.
He went on to say that some of the other accused in the case benefited by the case being referred to a larger bench.
The Delhi Police's attorney said that the Supreme Court's rulings, orders, and embargo are still enforceable until a higher bench provides clarification.They might have approached the SC and asked for clarifications if they felt wronged or had any other concerns. The Honorable Supreme Court was the proper forum. The attorney continued, "Once the SC rendered its decision, this court cannot."
Special Public Prosecutors Madhukar Pandey and Anirudh Mishra, as well as attorneys Ayodhya Prasad, Sulabh Gupta, Saravjet Singh, Ishika Singh, and Ananya Bose, represented the State.
Umar Khalid was represented by senior lawyer Trideep Pais, as well as solicitors Sahil Ghai, Sanya Kumar, Sakshi Jain, Saloni Ambastha, and Loveleen Kukreja.
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