The rejection of bail to 2020 Delhi anti-Hindu riots accused Umar Khalid and others, by the Delhi High Court earlier this month, has, quite expectedly, rattled the left liberal gang.
The High Court rejected the bail plea of the accused after observing that the accusations against Khalid and other co-accused in the case were prima facie true. But, ‘journalist’ Rajdeep Sardesai, who is perturbed by the rejection of Umar Khal’d ‘s bail plea.
According to him, a ‘narrative’ is being spread across social media that Khalid has been languishing in jail for years, not because of the judicial delay but because his advocates have been seeking repeated adjournments during the hearing of his bail plea.
Now even Rajdeep Sardesai, one of the most compromised journalists of our times, has admitted that Umar Khalid and his counsel Kapil Sibal were actively engaged in “bench hunting” and “forum shopping”.
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) September 6, 2025
They deliberately tried to avoid a particular judge, while at the same time… pic.twitter.com/umMQsTw6nm
While Rajdeep Sardesai does not deny that Khalid’s lawyer has been seeking adjournments, he goes on to justify their delaying tactics and forum shopping, which were seen through by the High Court, by saying that his lawyers were right in seeking the adjourments and withdrawing his Special Leave Petition (SLP) from the Supreme Court, as it was listed before a judge, who has a track-record of not granting bail in such cases.
How Khalid wanted to use his prolonged inacrceration as a ground for bail
Notably, during the hearing of the bail plea of Khalid, the prosecution apprised the court about the delaying tactics of Khalid’s lawyers. Special Public Prosecutor Amit Prasad pointed out that between 2023 and 2024, seven out of fourteen adjournments were sought by Khalid’s lawyers. Thus, the so-called delays in the hearing of the bail plea of Khalid were not caused by a slow-paced judicial procedure but were engineered by his lawyers to use his long incarceration period as a ground for bail.
The prosecution also highlighted that after Khalid’s bail plea was rejected by the High Court in 2022, he inexplicably waited for almost 6 months to file an SLP before the Supreme Court in April 2023, and later on, withdrew the SLP citing “change in circumstances”. The so-called change in circumstances coincided with two developments. Firstly, a change in the Bench after Justice Aniruddha Bose stepped down, and cases were listed before Justice Bela Trivedi. Khalid’s lawyers resisted this and sought repeated de-tagging and relisting.
Interestingly, during Khalid’s bail hearing in the trial court and the Delhi High Court, his lawyer, Kapil Sibal, cleverly tried to pin the delays in Khalid’s bail hearing on the Supreme Court, claiming that repeated adjournments and the eventual withdrawal of the SLP in February 2023 were forced by the slow pace of the proceedings and changes in circumstances. Sibal tried to misportray Khalid as a victim of the judicial system, while, in fact, he was misusing the very system to secure Khalid’s freedom. It is important to note here that Khalid’s case does not qualify for the ‘bail is the norm and jail is the exception’ principle, as a 2024 Supreme Court ruling clarified that in cases under the UAPA “jail is the norm and bail is the exception”.
Former CJI Chandrachud called out Khalid for his delaying tactics
The forum shopping and delaying tactics of Khalid’s lawyers were also called out by the former Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud. The former CJI also pointed out the same facts as presented by the prosecution before the Delhi High Court during the hearing of Khalid’s bail plea. He said that Khalid’s lawyers repeatedly sought adjournments before the court and withdrew his bail application from the Supreme Court, while making it seem like the entire judicial system was acting against him.
