India, May 19 -- The Supreme Court's unusual criticism of its own judgment denying bail to former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Umar Khalid and activist Sharjeel Imam in the 2020 Delhi riots case offers a narrow opportunity for freedom in the otherwise stringent provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), which make bail virtually impossible.

On Monday, a bench of justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan, while granting bail to Jammu & Kashmir resident Syed Iftikhar Andrabi in a narco-terror case, expressed "serious reservations" about the reasoning adopted earlier this year by another two-judge bench comprising justices Aravind Kumar and NV Anjaria in the Delhi riots case. The court found that the January 5 v...