A Delhi Court on Friday granted bail to Sharjeel Imam in a sedition case lodged against him for allegedly making an inflammatory speech at Jamia during an anti-CAA-NRC protest in 2019. He has been in custody for the last 31 months.
This case was registered at the police station in New Friends Colony, Delhi, in 2019. It is important to note that the proceedings in the offence of sedition are in abeyance. He has been granted bail under Section 153 (promoting enmity between the two groups of people) of the IPC. In this section, the maximum punishment is 3 years.
Additional Sessions Judge Anuj Agrawal granted Statutory (Default) bail to Sharjeel Imam in view of his undergone period in custody in section 153 A. He has undergone more than half of the period of the sentence.
The court granted relief to the JNU student on furnishing a personal bond of Rs 30,000 and a surety in the same amount, among other conditions.
The accused moved an application through advocates Talib Mustafa and Ahmad Ibrahim seeking statutory bail under Section 436 A of the Criminal Procedure Code on behalf of the accused, as he has served more than half of the sentence in custody.
Section 436 A of the CrPC states that a person who has, during the period of investigation, inquiry, or trial under the CrPC for an offence under any law (other than an offence for which the punishment of death has been specified as one of the punishments under that law), undergone detention for a period extending up to one half of the maximum period of imprisonment specified for that offence under that law, shall be released by the court on his personal bond with or without surety.
His earlier bail application was dismissed by the trial court on October 22, 2021, in view of sections related to sedition and promoting enmity between groups. He moved the High Court against the order.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court passed an order on May 17, 2022, directing the government to keep in abeyance all the cases related to the offence of sedition.
Thereafter, he again moved to trial court, seeking bail in light of the direction of the Supreme Court. The trial court had directed the petitioner to seek clarification from the High Court on how the provisions of Section 436 A of the CrPc applied in this case.
The Delhi High court on September 26 clarified the issue in an application moved on behalf of Sharjeel Imam. The petitioner had withdrawn his regular bail application.
Earlier the trial court had dismissed his bail, saying, “a cursory and plain reading of the speech of December 13, 2019, reveals that the same is clearly on communal/divisive lines. In my view, the tone and tenor of the incendiary speech tend to have a debilitating effect upon public tranquillity, peace and harmony of the society.”
