‘Symbolic political critique’: Delhi court grants bail to Congress workers in AI summit protest case

Symbolic political critique: Delhi court grants bail to 9 IYC workers in AI summit protest case

Updated on: Mar 2, 2026, 17:01:47 IST

Edited by Aarish Chhabra

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A Delhi court, while granting bail to nine Indian Youth Congress workers who were arrested in connection with the shirtless protest at the AI summit, said the protest constituted “symbolic political critique” and pre-trial detention could mean "pre-emptive punishment", news agency PTI reported.

Youth Congress members staging a protest in Jammu against the arrest of IYC workers, last Friday. (PTI File Photo)

"The protest, at highest, constituted symbolic political critique during a public event: T-shirts with leadership imagery, non-inciteful slogans bereft of communal/regional taint, and transient assembly. No evidence discloses property defacement, or delegate panic; exit was orderly via escort," the court noted.

Judicial Magistrate First Class Ravi passed the order on Sunday while hearing the bail pleas of the nine accused – Krishna Hari, Narshimha Yadav, Kundan Kumar Yadav, Ajay Kumar Singh, Jitendra Singh Yadav, Raja Gurjar, Ajay Kumar Vimal alias Bantu, Saurabh Singh and Arbaz Khan.

It noted that the pre-trial detention would be “a profound aberration fundamentally at odds with the bedrock axioms of criminal jurisprudence, which exalt liberty as the governing norm and incarceration as the narrowly circumscribed exception”. Essentially, it reiterated ‘bail as norm, jail as exception’.

The Delhi police, opposing the bail pleas, submitted that the Constitution grants the right to peaceful protest, “but there are also certain conditions”.

It argued that the accused Indian Youth Congress (IYC) workers raised slogans calling the India-US trade deal a “compromise”, in the presence of international media.

When police tried to stop the accused, “they attacked the police personnel”, who sustained injuries; there is medical evidence of the same, Delhi Police said.

The court, however, did not agree with the submissions.

The IYC workers entered the AI summit venue on February 20, wearing or holding white T-shirts with images of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump printed on them, along with slogans such as "India-US Trade Deal", "Epstein Files" and "PM is compromised".

The protesters also scuffled with security personnel and police staff deployed at the venue.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aarish Chhabra
Aarish Chhabra is an Associate Editor with the Hindustan Times online team, writing news reports and explanatory articles, besides overseeing coverage for the website. His career spans nearly two decades across India's most respected newsrooms in print, digital, and broadcast. He has reported, written, and edited across formats — from breaking news and live election coverage, to analytical long-reads and cultural commentary — building a body of work that reflects both editorial rigour and a deep curiosity about the society he writes for. Aarish studied English literature, sociology and history, besides journalism, at Panjab University, Chandigarh, and started his career in that city, eventually moving to Delhi. He is also the author of ‘The Big Small Town: How Life Looks from Chandigarh’, a collection of critical essays originally serialised as a weekly column in the Hindustan Times, examining the culture and politics of a city that is far more than its famous architecture — and, in doing so, holding up a mirror to modern India. In stints at the BBC, The Indian Express, NDTV, and Jagran New Media, he worked across formats and languages; mainly English, also Hindi and Punjabi. He was part of the crack team for the BBC Explainer project replicated across the world by the broadcaster. At Jagran, he developed editorial guides and trained journalists on integrity and content quality. He has also worked at the intersection of journalism and education. At the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, he developed a website that simplified academic research in management. At Bennett University's Times School of Media in Noida, he taught students the craft of digital journalism: from newsgathering and writing, to social media strategy and video storytelling. Having moved from a small town to a bigger town to a mega city for education and work, his intellectual passions lie at the intersection of society, politics, and popular culture — a perspective that informs both his writing and his view of the world. When not working, he is constantly reading long-form journalism or watching brainrot content, sometimes both at the same time.Read More

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