Meanwhile, Senior Advocate Rebecca John, appearing for Saifi, and Advocate Mehmood Pracha, appearing for Ahmed, said they were relying on the judgment in the Gulfisha Fatima vs State case as the principle laid down therein was enough to secure their clients bail.The Supreme Court on Wednesday adjourned the bail pleas of two of the accused in the 2020 Northeast Delhi communal riots case that challenged a Delhi High Court order denying them bail.Posting the matter for hearing on Friday, the top court, however, indicated that it was, prima facie, in favour of granting them the relief. “Prima facie, we are with you,” a bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and P B Varale said as it adjourned the hearing on pleas by accused Tasleem Ahmed and Khalid Saifi.On Tuesday, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) S V Raju, appearing for the Delhi Police, had told the court that he was studying a judgment delivered on Monday by a two-judge SC bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan, granting bail to Kashmir resident Syed Iftikhar Andrabi – booked under UAPA in a case of narco-terror probed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). He had told the top court that that the matter might need to be referred to a larger bench owing to conflicting views of two other two-judge benches.The top court on Wednesday deferred the hearing after ASG Raju sought another two days’ time to make submissions.Meanwhile, Senior Advocate Rebecca John, appearing for Saifi, and Advocate Mehmood Pracha, appearing for Ahmed, said they were relying on the judgment in the Gulfisha Fatima vs State case as the principle laid down therein was enough to secure their clients bail.On Monday, the bench of Justices Nagarathna and Bhuyan, while granting bail to Andrabi, had referred to a 2021 decision of a three-judge bench in the case Union of India vs K A Najeeb. The court had in the case said that violation of a fundamental right, like the one to speedy trial, can be a ground for grant of bail even under a stringent law like the UAPA. The bench had then upheld the bail granted to an accused jailed since April 2015 for alleged involvement in chopping the hand of a Kerala professor in 2010.The bench said that despite this, in two subsequent judgments — Gurwinder Singh vs State of Punjab in February 2024 and Gulfisha Fatima vs State (NCT of Delhi) on January 5, 2026 — separate two-judge benches took somewhat a divergent view “from the clear, distinctive trajectory… earlier followed” in the Najeeb case.Story continues below this adIn the 2024 ruling, a bench cautioned against “mechanical” invocation of delay to seek bail, suggesting bail should only be considered if it also satisfies the test under Section 43(D)(5) of the UAPA.In Gulfisha Fatima vs State, an SC bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and N V Anjaria, while granting bail to five accused in the Delhi riots case, had denied relief to accused Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, saying they stood on a “higher footing in the hierarchy of participation”. The court had observed that prolonged incarceration cannot be an “absolute entitlement” to seek bail in terror cases. © The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:supreme court