The prolonged incarceration of scholars and activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, alongside the controversial denial of their bail by a Supreme Court bench, has drawn sharp rebuke from another apex court bench, which observed that the two-judge bench handling the matter had failed to follow a binding three-judge bench ruling that resolutely underscored that bail remains the rule and jail the exception, even within the stringent contours of UAPA cases.
While granting bail to Syed Iftikhar Andrabi, who has languished in custody for over five years under alleged narco-terrorism charges, Justices Justice B. V. Nagarathna and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan expressed reservations regarding the January decision, an order that had paradoxically enlarged several co-accused on bail while ensuring that Khalid and Imam remained incarcerated.
In a pointed critique of the earlier reasoning, the bench observed that the previous ruling had substantially hollowed out the sacrosanct principles laid down in the landmark 2021 Union of India v. K. A. Najeeb judgment, which unequivocally recognised prolonged pre-trial incarceration as a legitimate ground for the grant of bail.
The judges observed that subsequent verdicts, including Gurwinder Singh v. Union of India, had erroneously sought to dilute the principles laid down in Union of India v. K. A. Najeeb by reducing its constitutional safeguards to a narrow and exceptional departure rather than recognising it as a binding precedent deserving strict judicial discipline.
Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, underscoring the importance of judicial discipline, observed that a bench of lesser strength remains bound by the law declared by a larger coram, and that any departure from such precedent without reference to a larger bench would undermine institutional coherence and the sanctity of judicial hierarchy.
Referring to the landmark 2021 ruling in Union of India v. K. A. Najeeb, the bench observed that prolonged delay in trial constituted a substantive ground for bail notwithstanding the rigours of Section 43D(5) of the UAPA, and it cautioned that the precedent could neither be diluted nor circumvented by benches of lesser numerical strength.
The court further noted that the interpretation advanced in the Gulfisha Fatima order had impermissibly hollowed out the broader import of the Najeeb judgment by portraying it as a narrow and exceptional deviation applicable only in extreme factual circumstances.
The bench also clarified that the pre-Najeeb ruling in NIA v. Zahoor Ahmed Shah Watali could not be invoked to legitimise interminable pre-trial incarceration under the UAPA, while reiterating that judicial discipline demanded unwavering fidelity to precedents delivered by larger benches of the Supreme Court.