India, May 18 -- The Supreme Court on Monday criticised its January 5 judgment denying bail to former JNU student Umar Khalid and activist Sharjeel Imam in the alleged larger conspiracy case linked to the 2020 Delhi riots, and emphatically held that "bail is the rule and jail is an exception" even in prosecutions under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

A bench of justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan, while granting bail to Jammu and Kashmir resident Syed Iftikhar Andrabi in a narco-terror case investigated by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), 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...