The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice to Delhi Police on a fresh bail plea by JNU student Sharjeel Imam in a case related to alleged inflammatory speeches made by him during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) in 2019.
A Bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Anoop Kumar Mendiratta asked Delhi Police Crime Branch to file its reply on Mr. Imam’s plea while listing it for hearing on March 24.
The case relates to an FIR registered against Mr. Imam where it mentions two speeches delivered by him — the first one at Jamia Millia Islamia on December 13, 2019, and the second at Aligarh Muslim University on December 16, 2019.
The FIR in Delhi was registered on January 25, 2020, but Mr. Imam also faces four other FIRs across multiple States for the same speeches attributed to him. In his plea before the High Court, filed through advocate Ahmad Ibrahim, Mr. Imam has challenged a January 24 order of a trial court rejecting his bail plea in the FIR.
Court’s observations
While hearing Mr. Imam’s bail plea, the court hinted that it was inclined to grant bail to the final-year PhD student in the current case. The High Court said that the trial court, while denying bail to Mr. Imam, has not dealt with relevant considerations.
“He has dealt with nothing. All these offences are less than seven years. We are asking you [the police] why he [Imam] should not be enlarged on bail? Is he a flight risk? Will he tamper with evidence? Who are the witnesses?” the Bench asked.
The Public Prosecutor argued that the charges faced by Mr. Imam also include sedition, which is punishable with life imprisonment. But the Bench said that the issue relating to sedition has been dealt with by court long back. “The incitement has to be of violence. There has to be a conscious act promoting violence. You examine it,” the Bench said.
The High Court further said that in pre-conviction detention, courts should have compelling reasons to detain a person. “We don’t know for how long the trial will go on,” the Bench said.
It also asked the counsel for Mr. Imam that if it considers releasing him on bail, how it will be checked that he does not indulge in the act of giving speech again, noting that “it was not a solitary instance, it was repeated”.
Mr. Imam’s counsel said his client was in custody since his arrest from his hometown of Jehanabad in Bihar on January 28, 2020. The counsel contended that the trial is going to take a long time as there are more than 170 witnesses and the trial has not even started yet.
The investigating agency has filed the chargesheet against Mr. Imam in the present case on July 25, 2020, for offences punishable under Sections 124A, 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race), 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national-integration), 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of IPC and later Section 13 of UAPA was added.
“In the instant case, Section 13 UAPA, which has been invoked against the appellant [Mr. Imam], does not attach with itself the stringent provision of bail as contained in Section 43D (5) of UAPA,” Mr. Imam’s plea said.
“Further, the bail application of the appellant was essentially dismissed for having found prima facie case under Section 124A IPC, which is an offence triable exclusively by the Court of Sessions and the Sessions Court having unfettered powers under Section 439 to grant an accused regular bail,” the plea added.
