Why UAPA demands urgent reform

October 12 marks the second death anniversary of Professor G.N. Saibaba. Saibaba, a professor at Delhi University who was 90% physically disabled. He was arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) in 2014, on allegations of having links with Maoists. Denied bail, he remained in prison until a trial court convicted him in 2017 and sentenced him to life imprisonment — a judgment that this writer, in the pages of this newspaper, criticised at the time as being based entirely on guilt by association and insinuation.

Vindication eventually arrived in 2024, when the Bombay High Court acquitted him of all charges. By then, Professor Saibaba had spent a decade in prison, much of it in solitary confinement. In prison, his health had further deteriorated, and soon after his release, he passed away.

A law that punishes dissent

The anniversary of Professor Saibaba’s death is an occasion to reflect on a legal regime that is designed to — quite literally — imprison dissent and deny justice. Over the years, the UAPA has been used to criminalise political opposition. Following the violence at the Bhima Koregaon commemoration event in 2018, UAPA charges were brought against 16 scholars and activists, all of whom were jailed. Eight years later, the trial has yet to begin, and the court has yet to frame charges against the accused.

Meanwhile, Father Stan Swamy died in custody after his health deteriorated. One after another, 14 of the remaining accused were granted bail, but only after spending years in prison without trial. Their bail conditions remain draconian and restrictive, imposing multiple reporting conditions, restricting travel and severely constraining their lives. The 16th prisoner, lawyer Surendra Gadling, was also granted bail in the case but remained in prison in connection with another case.

Similarly, after the Delhi riots in 2020, UAPA charges were levelled against multiple student leaders, scholars, and activists, accusing them of participating in, or being the brains behind, the riots. Notably, there was no direct evidence against any of these people, only vague charges of conspiracy and of being the “intellectual architects” of the riots.

While a few of these individuals were granted bail soon after, many students and scholars remained in jail for years, with their bail applications denied at all levels of the judiciary. It was only in early 2026, after more than five years in jail, that five of the seven appellants were granted bail by the Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court denied bail to the remaining two — Sharjeel Imam and Umar Khalid — on the basis that they were “intellectual architects.”