The Supreme Court has dismissed activist Umar Khalid’s plea for review of the January 5 judgment rejecting his bail appeal in the 2020 Delhi riots case.
The court also refused to accept his request for an open-court hearing of the review petition, which is usually held in judges’ chambers.
“Prayer for oral hearing in the review petition is rejected. Delay condoned. Having gone through the review petition and also the documents enclosed, we do not find any good ground and reason to review the judgment dated 05.01.2026. Accordingly, the review petition is dismissed. Pending application(s), if any, shall stand disposed of,” a bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and N.V. Anjaria said in a written order.
The order, passed on April 16, came into the public domain on April 20.
On April 13, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Khalid, had requested an open-court hearing of the review petition. The bench had told him the plea would be considered.
According to Supreme Court rules, review petitions are heard in the closed chambers of judges, and the case files are circulated among the judges who had passed the judgment under review.
On January 5, the court had dismissed the bail pleas of Khalid and another principal accused, Sharjeel Imam, in connection with the Delhi riots that claimed 56 lives. But the top court had granted bail to five other co-accused — Gulfisha Fatima, Meeran Haider, Shifa-ur-Rehman, Mohd Saleem Khan and Shadab Ahmed — with several conditions.
While the bail pleas of Khalid and Imam were rejected on the ground that material placed by the prosecution for offences under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and various other penal sections “discloses a prima facie attribution of a central and formative role in the alleged conspiracy”, the alleged involvement of the other accused was “confined to facilitation or participation at a different level. To disregard such distinctions would itself result in arbitrariness.”
The bench of Justices Kumar and Anjaria had passed the judgment while dealing with a batch of appeals filed by the accused challenging their prolonged jail for over five years as a serious violation of their fundamental right to life and liberty guaranteed under Article 21.