Delhi Riots Case: Are the Accused to be Tried or Simply Held?

Umar Khalid and others have been in jail now for five long years, awaiting trial for having allegedly incited riots in the capital in 2020.

The trial has not begun, and is not likely to for some time.

This could be for one of two reasons: either the state does not have a good case, or it simply intends to use the UAPA law to keep them locked up indefinitely.

The alleged culprits, all quite educated and politically idealist individuals, unlikely to have either the intent or the wherewithal to escape the country, have thus far failed to obtain bail from any court, despite the oft-repeated catechism that 'bail is the rule and jail the exception.'

To the best of my knowledge none of the impugned individuals have any record of conviction in any previous case.

Turn the page, and you may see the "god man", Ram Rahim, convicted and serving a life sentence on proven charges of rape and murder, obtain parole at the drop of the legal hat now and again, especially at election times.

Many among those millions who flock to him, one may speculate, would not mind the accused in the Delhi riots case hung, drawn, and quartered even if without a trial.

Is that a collateral political reality on which the state rests its complacency in not urging its prosecutors to commence the trial of Umar Khalid and others ?

We will not speculate whether any guilt does indeed attach to the accused in the Delhi riots case, but we do think the constitutional regime of the rule of law owes to them the due process of a speedy and fair trial, and the right to bail while that trial is underway.

Surely, the state may hardly want its handling of the case in point to be construed as its unwillingness to accord justice to the accused for reasons not difficult to understand in the context of the milieu the nation now finds itself in.

Or does the establishment truly not care?

It is to be much hoped that with the case now before the Supreme Court, the provisions of the UAPA may come to be seen with the same enlightened broadmindedness with which the top court not too long back held on the illiberal excesses of the working provisions of the Enforcement Directorate.

Wherever one looks, bad days for citizens who still have faith in the values of the freedom struggle, in the humanist inspirations of the constitutional order, and in the exalted rights of fearless citizenship simply get worse and worse. That is the reason why the Supreme Court has justly come to be seen as the institution of last resort.

The denial of bail to the accused in the Delhi riots case and the interminable delay in beginning the trial do not project the majesty of the state: rather its frightened escapism.

This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.

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