4 years in jail, trial hasn't even started. Supreme Court says — enough.

He was caught with 1,193 fake Rs 2,000 notes at Mumbai airport. Four years later, the trial hadn't even begun.

Javed Gulam Nabi Shaikh was arrested on 9 February 2020 at Mumbai airport. A tip-off had led police to search his bag. Inside, they found 1,193 counterfeit notes of Rs 2,000 each — a thick, heavy stack that felt like paper but carried the weight of a life sentence. The police registered a case at Sahar Police Station. Then the National Investigation Agency (NIA) took over, citing a suspected Pakistan connection. Two co-accused were arrested alongside Shaikh. Both got bail. Shaikh did not.

By July 2024, Shaikh had spent over four years in jail as an undertrial (a person awaiting trial, not yet convicted). The trial court had not even framed charges — the formal step where the court tells the accused exactly what crime they are accused of. The prosecution intended to call 80 witnesses. The Bombay High Court had refused bail in February 2024. Shaikh appealed to the Supreme Court. The question was simple: how long can a man wait for his trial to start before the law says — enough?

When the airport search changed everything

The prosecution's case began with that search on 9 February 2020 at CSMIA Terminal II. The police officer's hands must have felt the unusual heft of the bag — 1,193 counterfeit notes of Rs 2,000 denomination, stacked and hidden. Shaikh had allegedly travelled to Dubai on 6 February and received the counterfeit notes from an absconding accused person there. He returned to Mumbai with the notes in his bag. The police filed an FIR (a written complaint that starts a police investigation) under Sections 489B and 489C of the Indian Penal Code — dealing with using and possessing counterfeit currency — along with Section 120B (criminal conspiracy) and Section 34 (common intention).

Given the alleged trans-national smuggling angle, the investigation was transferred to the NIA. The agency registered a new case — RC/03/20/NIA/Mumbai — and took over the probe. Two co-accused were arrested. Both were granted bail by the courts. Shaikh remained in custody.

The trial court designated to handle NIA cases in Mumbai did not frame charges even after four years. The prosecution said it needed time to examine 80 witnesses. For Shaikh, each day in jail was a day he spent presumed innocent but locked up like a convict — the cell walls closing in, the waiting endless, the trial a distant promise.

Why the High Court said no

Shaikh approached the Bombay High Court seeking bail. The High Court declined on 5 February 2024. The court noted the seriousness of the offence — counterfeit currency allegedly linked to Pakistan — and the stringent provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA), which the NIA had invoked. Section 43-D(5) of the UAPA places strict restrictions on bail: the court cannot grant bail unless it believes there are reasonable grounds to think the accused is not guilty.

The High Court found that Shaikh had not crossed that high bar. Bail was refused.

Shaikh then filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) before the Supreme Court. He argued that four years of incarceration without charge-framing violated his fundamental right to a speedy trial under Article 21 of the Constitution (the right to life and personal liberty, which includes the right to a fair and speedy trial).

When the Supreme Court stepped in

The Supreme Court bench — Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan — heard the appeal on 3 July 2024. The courtroom fell silent as the judges opened the file — a thin record for four years of legal limbo. The court had to decide whether the stringent bail restrictions under the UAPA could keep a man in jail indefinitely while the trial had not even started.

The court looked at its own precedents. In Union of India v. K.A. Najeeb (2021), the Supreme Court had held that even under the UAPA, prolonged incarceration without trial progress could override the statutory bail restrictions. In Mohd Muslim @ Hussain v. State (NCT of Delhi) (2023), the court had reiterated that the right to a speedy trial under Article 21 cannot be defeated by procedural hurdles. The court also considered Gudikanti Narasimhulu & Ors. v. Public Prosecutor, High Court (1978), Gurbaksh Singh Sibba v. State of Punjab (1980), Hussainara Khatoon v. Home Secy., State of Bihar (1980), Kadra Pahadiya & Ors. v. State of Bihar (1981), Abdul Rehman Antulay v. R.S. Nayak (1992), and Satender Kumar Antil v. Central Bureau of Investigation (2022) — a long line of cases reinforcing the primacy of Article 21.

The court also considered Section 436A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), which says that an undertrial who has served half the maximum punishment for the offence should be released on bail. For the offences Shaikh faced, the maximum punishment was life imprisonment. But the court did not rely on that provision alone. It went further.

What the court held

The Supreme Court allowed the appeal and set aside the High Court's order. Shaikh was ordered to be released on bail, subject to conditions imposed by the trial court. The additional conditions: Shaikh shall not leave Mumbai city limits and shall mark his presence at the NIA office or police station once every fifteen days.

The court's reasoning was clear. "Bail is not to be withheld as a form of punishment; its sole purpose is to secure the attendance of the accused at trial," the Supreme Court held. "This principle applies regardless of the severity of the offence charged." The court further declared that "the presumption of innocence until proven guilty cannot be brushed aside merely because the penal law is stringent; an undertrial prisoner retains the full protection of this overarching postulate of criminal jurisprudence."

The ratio decidendi was precise: where an accused under UAPA or similar stringent statutes has been incarcerated for a prolonged period without trial progressing to even charge-framing stage, and there is no prospect of early conclusion, the statutory restrictions on bail yield to the fundamental right to speedy trial under Article 21 of the Constitution, and bail must be granted.

The court emphasised that bail is not to be withheld as a form of punishment. Its sole purpose is to secure the attendance of the accused at trial. The presumption of innocence until proven guilty cannot be brushed aside merely because the penal law is stringent.

What this means for undertrials

The judgment is a reminder that the right to a speedy trial is not a theoretical promise. It is enforceable, even against the toughest bail restrictions. For practitioners, the key takeaway is this: when the trial has not moved to charge-framing after years of incarceration, and the prosecution's witness list is long, the argument for bail shifts from the merits of the case to the constitutional clock.

THE PLAY: If your client has been in custody for over two years without charges being framed, file for bail on Article 21 grounds — the right to a speedy trial trumps statutory bail restrictions when the trial has not even begun.

The court ended where it began: with a man who walked into an airport with fake notes in his bag, and walked out of jail four years later without ever having heard the charges against him read out in court.