India, May 19 -- Stressing that bail is the rule and jail is the exception is not merely an empty statutory slogan, the Supreme Court on Monday questioned its January 5 judgment denying bail to activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case. A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan, while granting bail to Handwara resident Syed Iftikhar Andrabi in a narco-terror case probed by the NIA, said that it has "serious reservations" on the reasoning adopted by a different bench of the SC.

"We have serious reservations on various aspects of the judgment in the Gulfisha Fatima case, including foreclosing the right of the two appellants to seek bail for a period of one year," the court observed.

On Januar...