“Disgusting” speech cannot by itself attract the strictures of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), accused in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case told the Supreme Court on Tuesday (Dec 9, 2025) as they concluded arguments on their bail pleas.
Senior advocate Siddharth Dave, appearing for Sharjeel Imam, informed Justices Aravind Kumar and NV Anjaria that the prosecution’s case rested almost entirely on Mr. Imam’s speeches, which he argued could not ipso facto be construed as an “act of terrorism” under Section 15 of the UAPA5.
“The allegation is not whether my speech individually violates Section 15. The question is whether those speeches were conspiratorial in nature. If they were not, Section 15 cannot be invoked,” he said.
Mr. Dave further pointed out that the Delhi Police had registered nearly 750 FIRs related to the riots, but Mr. Imam was not named in any of them. “This is a special FIR where the alleged conspiracy is prosecuted separately from the actual acts alleged to have been committed pursuant to that conspiracy… I do not figure in any of the 750 FIRs. Is the speech per se conspiratorial in nature?” he asked.
Along with Mr. Imam’s plea, the court also heard the bail pleas of activists Umar Khalid, Gulfisha Fatima, Meeran Haider, Shifa-ur-Rehman and Mohd. Saleem Khan and Shadab Ahmed, all charged with conspiracy to riot and charged under the UAPA. They challenged the Delhi High Court’s September 2 order denying them bail, which characterized their alleged roles as “egregious” and indicative of a coordinated conspiracy behind the riots that left 53 dead and hundreds injured in the state capital.
‘Meeting of the Minds’
Mr. Dave disputed Mr. Imam’s alleged role, claiming that his client was arrested on January 28, 2020, almost a month before the violence broke out. The charge of criminal conspiracy, he argued, presupposed a “meeting of the minds”, while Mr Imam had already been taken into custody weeks before the riots broke out.
“Today he stands before your Lordships seeking bail. After nearly six years in custody, your Lordships may kindly consider releasing him, especially as he was not physically present and is not charged in any of the cases relating to the actual incidents of rioting. The speech is in Aligarh, yet I am being prosecuted in Delhi,” he said.
Justice Kumar, however, asked the senior counsel to respond to the prosecution’s main allegation that the speeches were not isolated political speeches but part of a coordinated plan to incite violence. “They (Delhi Police) are saying that Aligarh’s speech was circulated in Delhi which fueled the riots in Delhi,” he said.
Mr. Dave then informed the Bench that the Allahabad High Court had already granted bail to Mr. Imam in November 2021 in connection with a speech delivered at Aligarh Muslim University in January 2019 during the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA). The Supreme Court noted, saying it was “undisputed” that Mr Imam did not encourage anyone to carry arms or incite violence.
He then played a compilation of Mr Imam’s speeches, noting that several of them specifically called for non-violence and urged people not to “take stones”. The bench, however, drew his attention to video clips relied upon earlier by the Delhi Police in which Mr Imam is allegedly heard talking about “cutting off Assam” from the rest of the country and urging protesters to “choke supplies”.
The senior lawyer admitted that some of his client’s speech was “disgusting”, but stressed that they could not attract the strict provisions of the UAPA if there were no demonstrable consequences. He argued that the prosecution had failed to establish a causal link between the speeches and the subsequent violence.
“Some of his speech is disgusting. It could have been worded better. It could have stayed within the boundaries of the four laws… but if those speeches had led to a riot, I would have been prosecuted for that riot. There has to be some overt act, some speech that says to commit this act within a few days,” he added.
Earlier, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Mr Khalid, warned that treating the protests as criminal acts would see ordinary dissent prosecuted under a tough anti-terrorism law. He read portions of Mr. Khalid’s speeches in which he invoked Gandhi’s principles and expressly called for non-violence. “They are young students who agitated. We also agitated when we were young. If you are going to protest, is there any point in keeping me in jail? That cannot be the law of this country,” he said.
No “open negotiations”
Senior advocate Salman Khurshid, appearing for Mr Rehman, argued that criminal conspiracy required an agreement to commit an unlawful act and an accompanying “overt act”, neither of which he argued the prosecution had proved. “Privacy and secrecy are attributes of conspiracy rather than loud discussion in an elevated place open to the public,” he said.
He added that participation in a nationwide protest cannot in itself justify attributing criminal intent to everyone involved. “When there is a protest movement, people from different parts of the country join. To assume that everyone who responds to the protest is a conspirator is very unfortunate. Mahatma Gandhi engaged in civil disobedience. It was defiance of the law, but defiance does not mean violence,” he said.
The bench took cognizance of the submission and posted the matter for further hearing on December 10. Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, representing the Delhi Police, is expected to submit his final submissions on Wednesday. He had earlier said that several arguments advanced on behalf of the accused were factually flawed and that he would make the necessary clarifications before the court.
The Delhi Police had earlier claimed that the violence in the capital was not the result of a peaceful protest against the CAA becoming unstable, but a “clear act of terrorism”. Mr. Raju argued that the scale of the violence and the intent behind it left “no doubt” that the conspiracy extended far beyond the civil demonstrations against the CAA. He further stated that the broader goal of the protests was “regime change”, a parallel to the violent political uprisings in Bangladesh and Nepal.
Published – 9 Dec 2025 22:10 IST
