New Delhi: While delivering the keynote address at an event organised by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) in Sweden, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant lauded the Supreme Court’s verdict in the Union of India v K.A. Najeeb (2021) case, which stated that prolonged incarceration and delay in trial were justifiable grounds for granting bail. His statement is in sharp contrast to the courts’ refusal of bail to Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, two scholars awaiting trial who are also jailed under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA).Emphasising the role of the Supreme Court in protecting the rights citizens belonging to oppressed and marginalised sections of the society, the CJI, as quoted by Times of India, said:“In K.A. Najeeb, the Supreme Court held that, regardless of the statutory embargo created against the grant of bail to a person suspected to be involved in activities prohibited under the UAPA, the SC retains the power to grant bail where prolonged incarceration has become so excessive as to infringe upon the accused’s fundamental right to a speedy trial under Article 21 of the constitution.”‘Union of India vs K.A. Najeeb’In 2010, K.A. Najeeb was accused of being a key conspirator in a violent assault against a professor in Kerala. He was arrested by the National Investigating Agency (NIA) in 2015 are charged with multiple offences under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and UAPA, including rioting, attempt to murder, criminal conspiracy and commission of terrorist acts.Najeeb remained in custody without trial for more than five years – the trial court repeatedly refused his bail applications by citing Section 43D(5) of UAPA, which prohibits bail if there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accusation is prima facie true. Subsequently, the Kerala high court granted him bail in 202o, noting his drawn out incarceration without the possibility of a timely trial.Also read: ‘Najeeb’, ‘Watali’ and the Statutory Restrictions on Bail Under UAPADispleased with the ruling, the Union of India appealed to the Supreme Court which upheld the judgment, exercising the primacy of fundamental rights and constitutional principle over statutory conditions.The decision has spurred widespread debate, particularly when applied to other highly controversial cases of extended pre-trial incarceration under UAPA. Furthermore, two division benches of the apex court have offered conflicting interpretations of the judgment.A divergence in interpretationOn January 5, 2026, a bench comprising Justices Aravind Kumar and N.V. Anjaria delivered its verdict on a list of bail pleas concerning seven individuals accused in the 2020 Delhi riots.At the time of the ruling, all seven appellants, Sharjeel Imam, Umar Khalid, Shifa-ur-Rehman, Mohammad Saleem Khan, Meeran Haider, Shadab Ahmed and Gulfisha Fatima, had been in continuous judicial custody for five years without trial.While the court granted bail to five accused, it denied the release of Khalid and Imam, describing them as “principal architects” of the alleged conspiracy. According to the Supreme Court Observer, Najeeb’s case was repositioned as a “safeguard against unconscionable detention” to be used only in “appropriate cases.” The bench had asserted that Article 21 cannot be invoked as a “trump card” for seeking bail.A division separate bench, consisting of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan, expressed “serious reservations” regarding the Gulfisha Fatima v State judgment, holding that the verdict “hollowed out” the constitutional force behind K.A. Najeeb and ran contrary to the caution against treating statutory embargo as the sole reason for prolonged imprisonment. According to TOI, the bench added that the judgment was law of the land and had wrongly been ignored in Khalid and Imam’s case.CJI’s invocation of K.A. NajeebJustice Surya Kant had been an integral part of the 2021 K.A. Najeeb ruling. As per the TOI report, he had said:“Indeed, both the restrictions under a statute as well as the powers exercisable under constitutional jurisprudence can be well harmonised. Whereas at commencement of proceedings, courts are expected to appreciate the legislative police against grants of bail, the rigous of such provisions will melt down where there is no likelihood of trial being completed within a reasonable time and period of incarceration already undergone has exceeded a substantial part of the prescribed sentence. Such an approach would safeguard against the possibility of provisions like Section 43D(5) being used as the sole metric for denial of bail or for wholesale breach of constitutional right to speedy trial.”Speaking on the topic ‘Safeguarding the Rule of Law,’ the CJI cited the case as an example of the Supreme Court rendering “real and timely justice” to the “needy and impoverished.” He added that courts cannot be “mere spectators in the constitutional order” and must remain “vigilant guardians of constitutional supremacy, ensuring that no exercise of public power escapes the sustained discipline of law.”The divergence of views on the Najeeb case highlights the glaring irony of invoking the case at an international stage and using it as a precedent for fair and objective judgement prioritising constitutional values, while the reality, ridden with selective application, tells a different story.