New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday rejected bail pleas filed by former JNU student leaders Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, along with seven other accused in connection with the 2020 Delhi riots. The nine accused have been in detention since 2020, with the trial yet to commence.

A two-judge bench comprising Justices Navin Chawla and Shalinder Kaur had reserved its decision on 9 July. The bail petitions had been pending in the high court since 2022 and were previously heard by multiple benches. The accused include Sharjeel Imam, Umar Khalid, Mohd Saleem Khan, Shifa-ur-Rehman, Athar Khan, Meeran Haider, Shadab Ahmed, Abdul Khalid Saifi, and Gulfisha Fatima.

The allegations stem from sectarian clashes in Northeast Delhi on 23 February 2020, following protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which resulted in 53 fatalities and hundreds of injuries.

Delhi Police’s Special Cell and Crime Branch have stated that the unrest was part of an organized plot allegedly orchestrated by Khalid, tracing its origins to the anti-CAA and NRC demonstrations of 2019.

Imam was detained in August 2020, while Khalid and co-defendants were later formally charged. Khalid’s earlier Supreme Court application for release, filed from May 2023 to January 2024, was retracted due to “altered circumstances,” after which he returned to the trial court and refiled the petition in February 2025.