On 2nd September, the Delhi High Court dismissed the bail pleas of Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and seven others accused in the 2020 anti-Hindu Delhi riots larger conspiracy case. Soon after, a narrative spread on X (formerly Twitter) that the court took only 29 seconds to deliver the verdict. This claim, however, is misleading and ignores the judicial process.

One of the first to float such a claim was Harun Khan who goes by the handle @iamharunkhan on X. In a post, he claimed, “It Took them 29 Sec to dismiss the bail plea”. To support his claim, he used a screenshot of the posts by Live Law’s real-time updates. His post clocked over 2 lakh views and was amplified widely.

Another user, who appeared to be connected to the Indian Youth Congress, claimed, “MI-Lord delivered the verdict in just 29 seconds. That much could have been done through a WhatsApp message as well—why did MI-Lord trouble himself to come to court?”

Another user, Sahil Kazmi, claimed, “29 seconds. That’s all it took to reject the bail of Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam & other anti-CAA activists. Jailed for 5 years without a trial. If this isn’t a mockery of justice, then what is?”

In another post, Simi Singh claimed, “It only took them 29 seconds.”

Similarly, Mohammad Kadir, while adding a communal angle, said Muslims were jailed without evidence and added, “It Took them 29 Sec to dismiss the bail plea.”

These posts together created the viral impression that the court mechanically read out its order in half a minute.

Why the claim is wrong

The claim is factually incorrect. For those who are unaware, the Delhi High Court reserved its order on 9th July 2025 after extensive hearings. The pronouncement came nearly two months later, on 2nd September 2025. Far from being a “29-second” process, the judgment is a 133-page detailed order.

In this order, the Division Bench of Justice Naveen Chawla and Justice Shalinder Kaur discussed the submissions made by the accused, the counter-arguments of the prosecution, and placed its observations on the parity argument, the scope of Section 43D(5) of the UAPA, and related jurisprudence. While the Court did not go into the merits of the case, it recorded the rival contentions and analysed them before dismissing the appeals.

The few seconds that Live Law reported between “Judges arrive” and “All appeals dismissed” was the oral pronouncement, not the judicial reasoning. Pronouncements are often brief in open court, with the detailed order already authored and signed.

A mockery of facts, not of justice

Those claiming “29 seconds” are either ignorant of court procedure or are wilfully misleading. The bail rejection was not a casual decision but the outcome of a reserved judgment running over 100 pages. To equate the brief courtroom pronouncement with the entire judicial process is disingenuous and undermines public understanding of how courts function. The real mockery lies in such false claims that spread like wildfire, thanks to posts by some social media users who post anything to get famous, irrespective of whether they are right or wrong.