Supreme Court Grants Bail in NIA Narcoterrorism Case, Reaffirms UAPA Standards

The Supreme Court has granted bail to a man accused in a narcoterrorism case while strongly reaffirming that the principle of "bail is the rule and jail the exception" applies even under stringent anti-terror laws. The court also expressed serious reservations about a recent judgment that denied bail to activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam in a separate case related to the 2020 Delhi riots.

On Monday, a bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan ordered the release of Syed Iftikhar Andrabi, a resident of Handwara in Jammu and Kashmir. Andrabi has been in custody since 2020 in a case investigated by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which alleges his involvement in a cross-border drug trafficking syndicate that financed terrorist activities. The court directed him to surrender his passport and report to a local police station every fifteen days as conditions for his release.

In its ruling, the bench emphasized that constitutional protections of personal liberty govern even laws with strict bail provisions. The court stated that Section 43D(5) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), which outlines stringent conditions for granting bail, cannot justify...