The Delhi High Court on Wednesday granted bail to activist Sharjeel Imam in a sedition case relating to alleged inflammatory speeches made by him on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Imam was arrested in the sedition case in January 2020 and slapped with the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
A division bench of Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Manoj Jain granted bail to Sharjeel after taking into account the fact that he had already served half of the sentence for the offences invoked against him.
During the hearing, Sharjeel argued that he had already spent four years in prison out of the maximum of seven years and was eligible for statutory bail.
He also said that sedition law had been kept in abeyance by the Supreme Court and the UAPA provisions slapped on him do not carry more than a seven-year sentence.
The student activist, however, will remain in jail since he is also an accused in the larger conspiracy case in connection with the communal violence that broke out in northeast Delhi in 2020.
The riots erupted in February 2020 during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), killing over 50 people.
Sedition charges were slapped on Sharjeel over his speeches at Aligarh Muslim University on December 16, 2019, and Delhi's Jamia area on December 13, 2019, while protesting against the CAA and National Register of Citizenship (NRC).
According to the prosecution, Sharjeel allegedly threatened to cut off Assam and the rest of the North East from the country.
The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) PhD scholar approached the Delhi High Court earlier this year after a trial court denied him bail in the sedition case.
The trial court observed that Sharjeel's speeches "mobilised the public", disrupting the national capital, and might be the main reason for the outbreak of the riots.
