'No Call for Arms Or Violence': Allahabad HC in Sharjeel Imam's Bail Order
Sharjeel Imam was slapped with sedition for a speech he gave against CAA at the Aligarh Muslim University.
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In a detailed order issued a day after granting him bail, the Allahabad HC, said that former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Sharjeel Imam's speech at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), for which he was charged with sedition, did not call for arms or incite violence.
The court, however, said that "the exact imputations made and the effect prompted by the applicant by words uttered or gestures made etc. may remain to be examined at the trial which is yet to commence."
He was also asked to furnish a bail bond of Rs 50,000. The order was issued by by Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh of the Allahabad High Court.
Cases Against Sharjeel Imam
Imam was slapped with charges of sedition along with several other charges under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for a speech that he had delivered at AMU over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) on 16 January, 2020.
Imam was arrested in September last year from as arrested last year from Bihar's Jehanabad. He was also one of the key organisers of the Shaheen Bagh protest.
An FIR was registered against him in Uttar Pradesh's Aligarh district and by Delhi Police in January 2020 under IPC sections 124 A (sedition) and 153 A (promoting or attempting to promote disharmony or feelings of enmity on grounds of religion), 153B (making statements provoking breach of peace) and 505(2) (statements made which are alarming, false intention to create disharmony) of the IPC, according to IANS.
While he also had cases filed against him in Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, he was earlier given bail in the matters in Assam and Arunachal.
He is currently lodged in Delhi's Tihar jail.
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