The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act has institutionalised a regime of normalised incarceration through ordinary criminal process, producing what may be described as the figure of the “perpetual accused.” Through an examination of bail jurisprudence under Section 43D(5), the article demonstrates how statutory restrictions, judicial deference to prosecutorial narratives, and expansive interpretations of conspiracy have collectively inverted the presumption of innocence. The UAPA detention operates as de facto preventive detention without the constitutional safeguards traditionally associated with such measures, thereby hollowing out the guarantees of personal liberty under Article 21. 

The prolonged incarceration of Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967 marks a decisive inversion in the functioning of India’s criminal justice system, where deprivation of liberty increasingly precedes, rather than follows, adjudication of guilt. Both have spent more than five years in custody in connection with the 2020 Delhi riot conspiracy case without the conclusion of trial, rendering incarceration not a provisional procedural measure but the dominant experience of criminal process (Indian Express 2026; Al Jazeera 2026). This inversion unsettles a foundational principle of criminal law, that punishment must be contingent upon conviction and instead reveals a regime in which accusation, when filtered through exceptional statutes, is sufficient to justify prolonged imprisonment. In such cases, criminal procedure itself assumes a punitive character, collapsing the distinction between pretrial detention and punishment (Feeley 1979; Husain and Choudhury 2018; Satish 2020).

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