Jagtar Singh Johal acquitted in his first case

Who: Jagtar Singh Johal (Jaggi), a British Sikh from Dumbarton, Scotland, arrested in Jalandhar on 4 November 2017; the Additional District and Sessions Court at Moga; the National Investigation Agency (NIA); the legal charity Reprieve; and his brother Gurpreet Singh Johal.

What: On 4 March 2025 the Moga court acquitted Johal in the first of the cases against him to reach a verdict. It was registered in December 2016 at Baghapurana police station under the UAPA, the Arms Act and the Indian Penal Code. The prosecution said he had handed 3,000 pounds to an alleged co-conspirator in Paris in 2013 to buy weapons for the Khalistan Liberation Force, for use in killings of Hindu nationalists. Channel 4 reports that the court found no credible evidence linking him to the crimes, and Redress quotes it as saying the prosecution "miserably failed to prove" its case after more than seven years. The Tribune reports that six of the nine accused were acquitted and three were given two years each under the Arms Act.

Johal stayed in jail because of further cases brought by the NIA, eight by Reprieve's count and seven by The Tribune's, which rest on the same confession. He says he signed it under torture. Redress records his account of electric shocks and sleep deprivation in November 2017, and that the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found in November 2021 that he was tortured and his detention arbitrary. On 1 May 2025 more than 100 MPs and peers wrote to Foreign Secretary David Lammy, asking for decisive action and calling the acquittal a window of opportunity.

What followed: on 18 September 2026 the Delhi High Court granted bail in seven NIA cases, noting more than eight years in custody and that only 40 of 163 prosecution witnesses had been examined, and giving the Moga acquittal strong persuasive value. He was still held, and his lawyers filed a habeas corpus petition; he walked out of Tihar Jail on 1 October 2026. Bail is not an acquittal, and the seven cases are still pending, Outlook reports.

Where: Moga, Punjab, for the verdict; Delhi for the NIA cases, Tihar Jail and the High Court; and London, where the MPs' letter was sent.

Why it mattered: It was the first time any allegation against Johal had been tested at trial, and it failed. Reprieve said that keeping him in prison after the acquittal would be a mockery of justice, and the UK Foreign Office said it welcomed progress and remained committed to faster progress on his case. The High Court's bail order later leaned on the acquittal.