UK – The Guardian, Oct. 01, 2026
The British Sikh activist Jagtar Singh Johal has been released from a Delhi prison after the Indian high court warned the government it would be found in contempt of court if it continued to attempt to keep him in jail despite an 18 September court order releasing him on bail. Johal has been incarcerated for nine years without any full trial.
The court order was issued after Johal’s lawyers issued a writ of habeas corpus alleging he was being detained against the express direction of the court.
Johal’s nine-year detention on alleged terrorist offences, has been a cause of diplomatic tension between the UK and India, but campaigners have claimed the British government has not been active enough to secure his release or, alternatively, a full trial.
The campaign group Reprieve says his case has never come to full trial largely because of the inability of the Indian government to assemble credible witnesses to back their claim that Johal transported £3,000 to France to fund a multinational extremist plot involving targeted killings in the Punjab in 2016-17.
On Thursday morning, the high court in Delhi instructed the Indian government to release Johal by 2.30pm Indian time, giving government officials three hours to comply or find themselves risking contempt proceedings. In the end, he was released in the late afternoon wearing a red T-shirt to be greeted by friends, family and flowers.
Documents shown to the court by Johal’s lawyers on behalf of his father-in-law as petitioner revealed that messages from the prison to the Ministry of Home Affairs seeking permission for his release had been left unanswered.
His lawyers in their petition stated he had met all the bail conditions yet “the detainee has nevertheless not been released, and is being held in custody without the authority of any court, pending a ‘clarification’ sought by the jail from the Ministry of Home Affairs”.
