Delhi HC Asks Police Whether Sharjeel Imam's Bail Plea In Sedition Case Be Remanded Back To Trial Court

The Delhi High Court granted two-week time to the Police force to take instructions on whether the Trial Court’s order rejecting the bail plea of JNU student Sharjeel Imam should be remanded back to the trial court for adjudication.

The Bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Talwant Singh observed that the order rejecting appellant- Sharjeel Imam’s bail plea was a non-speaking order.

SPP informed the Court that the ground for rejecting the bail plea was that the charges had been framed against the appellant.

To which the Court said that this was no ground to reject the bail plea and further directed to seek instructions on whether the bail plea should be remanded back or not.

Advocate Tanveer Ahmed appeared for the appellant and SPP Amit Prasad appeared for the respondent-State.

In this case, the appeal was preferred against the order of the Trial Court wherein his bail application was rejected without mentioning any ground.

The appellant- Sharjeel Imam was arrested for making speeches at Jamia Millia Islamia on December 13, 2019, and at the Aligarh Muslim University on December 16, 2019, where he had threatened to cut off Assam and the rest of the Northeast from India.

It was argued by the appellant that the Trial Court had ‘failed to recognise’ that until the Supreme Court decided the constitutional validity of offence of sedition the charge of sedition no longer existed and therefore, relief must be granted to him.

The Court said that following the Supreme Court’s direction in May 2022, Section 124A (sedition) of the Indian Penal Code had been kept in abeyance. Therefore, the Trial Court’s bail rejection order would have to be examined considering the charges framed under other sections.

Earlier, in May 2022, the Supreme Court had stayed the registration of FIRs, probes and coercive measures for the offence of sedition across the country by the Centre and the States until an appropriate forum of the government re-examined the colonial- era penal law.

Accordingly, the matter was listed for further hearing on February 20, 2023.

Cause Title- Sharjeel Imam v. State of NCT of Delhi

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