Washington, D.C. (January 9, 2026) — Prashant Bhushan, a senior advocate at India’s Supreme Court, said on Friday that “roughly half” of the country’s top court judges function as “virtually colonies” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, speaking at a briefing on the denial of bail to political prisoners Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam.
The briefing, organized by the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), focused on what speakers described as the erosion of judicial independence, dissent, and minority rights in India. Khalid and Imam have been imprisoned under India’s Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), a sweeping anti-terror law.
“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,” Bhushan said.
“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],” he added.
Bhushan also questioned the composition of the bench that heard Khalid and Imam’s bail pleas, calling it “absolutely the junior-most bench in the Supreme Court.”
“To my mind, it must have been assigned to this bench because the government wanted it to be assigned to this bench,” he said.
“It’s doubly unfortunate that we are losing the independence of the judiciary,” Bhushan said. “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 said diplomatic pressure remains an important tool in drawing attention to what he described as the use of anti-terror laws to suppress 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,” Sifton said.
“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 added.
“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,” Sifton said. “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.”
Tronic said the prolonged detention of Khalid and Imam violates international law.
“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,” Tronic said.
“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,” he added.
