LiveLaw Daily | UAPA Bail Referred To Larger Bench | Umar Khalid Interim Bail | Twisha Sharma & More

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[00:00:00]Hello and welcome to LiveLaw Daily, your daily briefing on the most significant and important legal developments from across India's courts. I'm your host Debojit Das, and today was a packed Friday. So, let's get into it. And for our first story today, we have an observation from the Kerala High Court today during a hearing involving nurses on strike and hospitals allegedly hiring unqualified replacements. Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas was hearing a plea filed by the Kerala State United Nurses Association, which alleged that certain private hospitals were bringing in interns and unregistered nurses to continue operations during the strike.

[00:00:31]The association argued that under the Nurses and Midwives Act, only duly qualified and registered nurses can legally treat patients, especially in sensitive units like the ICU. But during the hearing, the court turned the conversation in another direction entirely. Justice Thomas orally asked the state government why nursing services has not been declared as an essential service, observing that if nurses were classified that way, they would not have a right to go on strike at all. The court also made some sharp remarks on the impact of strikes in the healthcare sector. You are in a position where you cannot go on strike and refuse to work, putting patients in peril, the judge observed, adding that hospitals become vulnerable when striking nurses prevent others from working. The Nurses Association, meanwhile, maintained that this was ultimately about hospitals refusing to pay fair wages despite spending money to hire temporary replacements. The matter will now continue before the Kerala High Court.

[00:01:20]And for our second story, here was a major turn in the NCERT textbook controversy that had triggered strong reactions from the Supreme Court earlier this year. Back in March, the Supreme Court had blacklisted three academics, Michel Danino, Suparna Divakar, and Alok Prasanna Kumar. They were stopped from participating in academic projects at central and state universities. The court had also accused them of deliberately portraying the Indian judiciary negatively after taking objection to a class 8 NCERT chapter on corruption in the judiciary that they had helped prepare. But today, a bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant along with Justice Joy Malya Bagchi and Justice Vipul Pancholi completely recalled that March 11th order and removed those adverse remarks as well.

[00:01:59]The academics argued that the earlier order was passed without even hearing them. Senior advocate Shyam Diwan appearing for Michelle Danino told the court that the chapter was a collective academic exercise and not attributable to any one individual. Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan appearing for Alok Prasanna Kumar made a broader point during the hearing. He argued that students cannot be shielded from real conversations around the judiciary when such debates already happen openly in public life and the media. As he put it, institutions need not be presented without warts and all. The bench however noted that the chapter focused only on corruption in the judiciary in a unique way without discussing its broader contributions. With today's order, the controversy around the NCERT chapter appears to have largely come to a close.

[00:02:42]And for our third story today, a deportation case before the Supreme Court took an important turn involving Bengali speaking individuals who were allegedly deported to Bangladesh after being suspected of not being Indian nationals. Their families had earlier moved Calcutta High Court through habeas corpus petitions and the High Court had then directed authorities to bring back Sonali Khatun, her husband Danish Sheikh and their sons Kurban and Imam. Now, one important detail here is that back in December last year, the center had already agreed to bring back Sonali Khatun on humanitarian grounds because she was pregnant at the time. But today Solicitor General Tushar Mehta made a broader statement before the court. He said the government would bring all of them back first, examine their legal status afterwards and then take further steps depending on the outcome. Senior advocate Sanjay Hegde appearing for the respondents requested that this assurance be formally recorded by the court. The Solicitor General agreed but clarified that this undertaking was only for the peculiar facts of this case and should not be treated as a precedent. The center also informed the court that the repatriation process would take around 8 to 10 days. And for our fourth story, anyone who has followed UAPA cases knows this is a major development and the issue has been steadily building through the week. At the heart of it is a crucial question. Can an accused be granted bail solely because they have spent too long in jail awaiting trial, despite the UAPA's stringent bail bar conditions under Section 43D5? That question came back into focus this week.

[00:04:07]In the landmark K. Najib judgment, the Supreme Court had earlier held that prolonged incarceration alone can justify bail, even under the UAPA. But later rulings in Gulfisha Fatima and Gurwinder Singh, both authored by Justice Arvind Kumar, appeared to narrow that principle. Then came another twist, because earlier this week Justices B.V.

[00:04:24]Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan, while hearing the Syed Ifthikar Andrabi matter that Live Law covered, too, criticized those later judgments for departing from K. Najib. And today, while hearing bail pleas of Delhi riots accused Taslim Ahmed and Khalid Saifi, a bench led by Justice Arvind Kumar referred the entire issue to a larger bench. The court also made an important institutional point, where one coordinate bench cannot effectively overrule another through judicial criticism. If there's disagreement, the matter must go before a larger bench. For now, Taslim Ahmed and Khalid Saifi have been granted interim bail, while the issue moves to the Chief Justice of India for constitution of an appropriate bench.

[00:05:00]Our fifth story also involves a related UAPA matter as Umar Khalid, who has been in jail since September 2020 in the northeast Delhi riots larger conspiracy case, received interim bail from the Delhi High Court today to be with his mother ahead of her surgery. Khalid is among the accused booked under the UAPA in what the prosecution describes as the larger conspiracy behind the 2020 Delhi riots. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court had refused him regular bail. Just last week, a Karkardooma trial court had also rejected him interim bail, observing that his father and sisters could take care of his mother during the medical procedure. But today, the matter reached the Delhi High Court. A division bench of Justices Pratibha M. Singh and Justice Anu Jain in Umar Khalid versus State granted him interim bail for 3 days, from June 1st to June 3rd, noting the circumstances surrounding his mother's surgery scheduled for June 2nd.

[00:05:48]Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju, appearing for Delhi Police, opposed the plea and argued that the surgery was minor and that Khalid could instead be allowed to visit under police escort.

[00:05:57]The High Court nevertheless granted interim bail while also imposing conditions. Khalid has been permitted to use only one mobile phone, must remain in continuous touch with the investigating officers, and will be subject to further conditions detailed in the final order. For our sixth story today, a political protest from 2020 which has landed now in the Supreme Court with the Chandigarh administration challenging the quashing of a criminal case against several senior Aam Aadmi Party leaders, including Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann. The case goes back to an AAP protest in Chandigarh against rising electricity tariffs.

[00:06:28]According to the FIR, around 750 to 800 party workers marched towards the Punjab Chief Minister's residence in Sector 2 after allegedly being instigated by leaders including Bhagwant Mann, Harpal Cheema, Meet Hayer, Baljinder Kaur, and Aman Arora. Police officials stationed at barricades claimed the crowd became aggressive, tried to break through barricades, and later resorted to stone-pelting after water was sprayed on them. Some officers reportedly suffered some simple injuries. But earlier, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had quashed the FIR and charge sheet entirely. The High Court found that there was no prima facie material showing any overt act by the AAP leaders. Importantly, the court noted that no prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC were in force at the time, meaning the gathering itself could not automatically be treated as unlawful. The High Court also pointed out that the charge sheet did not attribute any specific instigation words or gestures to the accused leaders, and observed that the alleged stone-pelting began only after the duty magistrate ordered water cannons to be used on the crowd. The matter came up before a bench led by Chief Justice Surayakant today, but was adjourned after the Union sought time to file related petitions concerning the other accused. And for our second last story here, we have the long-running Bhojshala-Kamal Maula dispute, which has now reached the Supreme Court after a major ruling by the Madhya Pradesh High Court earlier this month. The disputed complex located in Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh has been the subject of competing religious claims for years. Hindus regarded as Bhojshala, a temple dedicated to Goddess Vagdevi or Saraswati, while Muslims claim the site as the Kamal Maula mosque. For over two decades, a 2003 Archaeological Survey of India circular had created a shared arrangement. Hindus were allowed to worship on certain days, while Muslims could offer namaz on others. But on May 15th, the Madhya Pradesh High Court changed that position entirely. Relying on an Archaeological Survey of India report again, the High Court accepted the Hindu claim that the structure is a temple, quashed the 2003 Archaeological Survey of India circular, and effectively stopped namaz from being offered at the site. The High Court had also observed that the Muslim community could approach the state government for an alternate plot in Dhar district to construct a mosque. Now, Qazi Moinuddin, who had intervened in the High Court proceedings, has now moved the Supreme Court through a special leave petition challenging that judgment. The plea argues that the May 15th order seriously impacts the religious rights of the Muslim community. The matter is now expected to come up before the Supreme Court in the coming days. And for our final story, we have the Twisha Sharma dowry death case. Twisha Sharma was a 33-year-old film actress and model who had worked in Telugu films and other language films. She met her husband Samarth Singh through a matrimonial website, married him on December 9th, 2025, and was found dead at her matrimonial home in Bhopal just months later on April 17th, 2026. An FIR has been filed under the BNS for dowry death and cruelty and under the Dowry Prohibition Act. Samarth's mother, Girbala Singh, a retired judge herself, she was granted anticipatory bail by the trial court. Both Twisha's father and the state of Madhya Pradesh have challenged that before the Madhya Pradesh High Court. Before Justice A. K.

[00:09:29]Singh today, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the trial court had granted bail without looking at anything. No findings, no reasoning, and that it had completely missed the importance of the accused's own background as a retired judge. The court also took up Twisha's father's plea, which was for a second postmortem by an AIIMS Delhi team. The Solicitor General of India backed it, saying the accused had no right to oppose a second postmortem, and that when a father loses a daughter and wants another medical team to examine the body for his own satisfaction, the prosecution would not stand in the way.

[00:10:01]The husband's counsel pushed back, however, calling it as an insult health services, and separately sought that the body be handed over to the in-laws for last rites. The state has been directed to make logistical arrangements for the AIIMS Delhi team to travel to Bhopal.

[00:10:15]And that brings us to an end to today's episode of Live Law Daily. We'll be back on Monday with the latest, so visit livelaw.in to find all the stories mentioned in today's episode, and keep following us here to stay updated with everything that is law.