Police oppose in HC Sharjeel Imam's bail plea

new delhi: Delhi Police Thursday opposed in the Delhi High Court the bail plea of JNU Student Sharjeel Imam, arrested 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.

The police said the trial court's January 24 bail order, which has been challenged by Imam, is explicitly clear, legally tenable and does not merit any intervention by the high court.

A bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Rajnish Bhatnagar listed the matter for further hearing on April 29.

When the counsel for Imam urged the court to give an early date of hearing, the bench said, "don't heckle the court" and "don't try to intimidate the court".

The police, in its status report filed in response to Imam's bail plea, said the accused has wrongly mentioned that there are "more than 170 witnesses to be examined" whereas factually there are only 43 witnesses in the case most of whom are formal in nature.

"The trial court has been pleased to frame charges on March 15, 2022 proposing day-to-day trial in the matter and vide order dated March 15, 2022 posted the matter for admission/ denial on March 26, 2022 and for prosecution evidence on March 28-29, 2022. Thus, there is no delay in trial which in any case was already expedited by the trial court in the impugned order itself," the report, filed through special public prosecutor Amit Prasad, said.

It said there were no good grounds to entertain the present appeal challenging the trial court's order denying him bail and the same be dismissed.

The court said it was a settled law that once charges are framed, it would be safe to assume that a very strong suspicion was founded upon the materials before the court, which prompted it to form a presumptive opinion as to the existence of the factual ingredients constituting the offence alleged against the accused, to justify the framing of charge.

"In the order on charge, the trial court has discussed in details the manner in which each ingredients to constitute offences are made out and has come to conclusion that the offences involved in the present case merit imprisonment for life. Thus, once the trial court has come to this conclusion, the statutory bar comes in play restricting jurisdiction of the trial court to grant bail," it said.

The police said the facts of the case on which the charges are framed against the accused indeed suggest that the offence is "grave in nature" and "there is no frivolity in the case of the prosecution" and that the offence prima facie made out against the accused is punishable with imprisonment for life.

The status report was filed by the police in pursuance to the high court's notice earlier issued in the case.

As per the prosecution, Imam had allegedly made speeches at Jamia Millia Islamia on December 13, 2019, and at Aligarh Muslim University on December 16, 2019, where he threatened to cut off Assam and the rest of the Northeast from India.

Imam, who has been charged with section 124A (punishment for Sedition) of the IPC which entails for life imprisonment, has approached the high court challenging a trial court's January 24 order denying him bail in the case.

Imam's counsel has said he has been in custody for last 25 months and there was no likelihood of trial getting over in the near future as there were more than 170 witnesses to be examined and the trial has not even started yet.

The bail plea said that the instant FIR was registered against Imam on January 25, 2020, simultaneously with four other FIRs across multiple states for the same speeches attributed to him.