A Delhi court on Monday reserved its verdict on the statutory bail petition of former JNU student Sharjeel Imam, who was arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for allegedly delivering hate speech at the Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in December 2019.
Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat of Karkardooma court reserved the verdict after hearing the arguments.
Imam contended in the petition that he had undergone half of the maximum period of imprisonment specified for the offence by law after his arrest on January 28, 2020.
The plea further contended that since Sharjeel has completed three years and six months in judicial custody, he deserved the liberty of this court by grant of statutory bail under Section 436A of CrPC
The Special Branch of Delhi Police had arrested in January 2020 and he has remained behind the bars since. While he was initially booked for the offence of sedition, Section 13 of UAPA was added to it later.
In January 2022, the court framed charges against Sharjeel for the offences under Section 124A (sedition), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, etc), 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national-integration), 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of Indian penal Code, along with Section 13 (punishment for unlawful activities) of UAPA.
Earlier in June this year, the High Court of Delhi had issued notice on Imam’s plea challenging proceedings against him for the same speech delivered in two different cases at Jamia Millia Islamia University in December 2019.
The Single-Judge Bench of Justice Rajnish Bhatnagar asked Special Public Prosecutor Amit Prasad, representing the Delhi Police, for a prompt response and listed the matter for hearing on October 18.
Imam challenged the first supplementary charge sheet filed against him in FIR No. 22 of 2020 and FIR 242 of 2019 under Sections 124A and 153A of IPC.
He contended that the speech in question was already under investigation in FIR No. 22 of 2020 and that it was made subject matter of FIR 242 of 2019 by way of the impugned supplementary charge sheet in complete disregard and defiance of the law.
The petition alleged that the act of the Respondent to import the speech in question from the specific FIR registered for the same (FIR No. 22 of 2020) and make it a subject matter of the present prosecution knowing fully well that the petitioner was already being prosecuted for the same speech before the Special Court constituted under Section 22 of the NIA Act, 2008 was nothing but a classic case of abuse of the statutory power of investigation and thus, the charges should be kept aside.
The plea added that there cannot be multiple criminal proceedings on the same incident against a person as framing of subsequent charges for the offence of sedition was in gross violation of the Supreme Court judgments.
Sharjeel further prayed that the trial court should be directed to proceed with the trial in FIR 242 of 2019 in respect to all other offences, except Section 124A and 153A of IPC, without any further delay.
There could not be a second FIR and consequently, there could be no fresh investigation on receipt of every subsequent information in respect of the same cognisable offence or the same occurrence or incident giving rise to one or more cognisable offences, he noted.