India, Jan. 6 -- The Supreme Court's refusal to grant bail to student activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case rests on a key judicial finding that the prosecution material, taken at face value, places the two on a "qualitatively different footing" from other accused, attributing to them "central", "formative" and "strategic" roles in the alleged conspiracy rather than local or episodic participation.

In a detailed judgment running into 142 pages, the bench of justices Aravind Kumar and NV Anjaria drew a doctrinal line between conceptual orchestration and on-ground execution, holding that bail under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) must turn on role differentiation, hierarchy of parti...