Half of Supreme Court Judges “Virtually Colonies of Government,” says Senior Advocate on Denial of Bail to Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam

Washington, D.C. (January 9, 2026) – Prashant Bhushan, Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court of India, slammed “roughly half” of Supreme Court judges as “virtually colonies” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, in remarks made at a briefing organized by the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) on the recent denial of bail to political prisoners Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam. 

 

“Roughly half the judges in the Supreme Court today are virtually colonies of the government. Therefore, they are those judges who are unlikely to do anything or say anything or give any important judgment against the government,” said Bhushan. “This particular case was regarded as a very important case by the government, and therefore, they wanted to convey this message that.. anybody organizing protests against the government will suffer the same fate [as Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam].”

 

Bhushan further explained that the bench hearing Imam and Khalid’s bail pleas was “absolutely the junior-most bench in the Supreme Court,” adding, “To my mind, it must have been assigned to this bench because the government wanted it to be assigned to this bench.”

 

“It’s doubly unfortunate that we are losing the independence of the judiciary,” he emphasized. “So many judges… either subscribe to the ideology of the government or in some way or the other are beholden to the government or are not willing to give judgments independently and against the government.

 

Also speaking at the briefing were John Sifton, Asia Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch, and Brian Tronic,  Director of the Fred Hiatt Program to Free Political Prisoners at Freedom House.

 

Sifton emphasized the importance of using diplomacy as a tool to highlight broader trends of anti-terror laws being weaponized to shut down dissent in India.

 

“We recognize that the government seems to be immune to outside pressure, but the fact of the matter is, both Prime Minister Modi and the BJP… do have an interest in maintaining a good international profile. It does get under their skin when they are viewed as committing human rights abuses, as being overbrought in their prosecutions. And when these cases get raised during foreign visits, it embarrasses them,” he said. 

 

“The fact of the matter is, when there’s no more capacity to criticize and bring your grievances to a government, everything in your nation degrades,” he added. “A healthy nation is one in which the people can bring complaints to the government and have them addressed without fear that they’ll be prosecuted and put in jail for five years without even being convicted.”

 

“This is a flagrant violation of Articles 9(1) and 9(3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which enshrine a presumption of bail,” said Tronic. “What these cases highlight is that two men who were speaking out and criticizing their government have been essentially subjected to what seems to be indefinite detention… and this sends a message to anyone in India: criticize the government and you may be held indefinitely five years more without being convicted of a crime.”