Delhi High Court refuses to stay trial court proceedings against Sharjeel Imam in ‘hate speech’ case
Sharjeel Imam moved the Delhi High Court, challenging a March 7 order by a Saket court that directed the framing of charges against him.
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Student activist Sharjeel Imam. (File Photo)The Delhi High Court Thursday refused to stay the trial court proceedings on the framing of charges against student activist Sharjeel Imam in a 2019 case where he is accused of hate speech and criminal conspiracy.
Imam approached the Delhi High Court to challenge a March 7 order by a Saket court, which directed the framing of charges against him in the case. The trial court, while issuing the direction, observed that Imam’s speech of December 13, 2019, near Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi was a “venomous”, “pitted one religion against another” and was “indeed a hate speech”.
The trial court directed to frame charges under section 109 (abetment) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) read with sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups), along with offences pertaining to unlawful assembly, rioting, assault on public servants, attempt to culpable homicide, as well as for charges under the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act (PDPP).
Imam, in his revised petition, has pointed out that the trial court failed to record any prima facie finding on the essential ingredients of IPC Section 153A being satisfied, and failed to record any piece of evidence connecting Imam’s speech on December 13, 2019, to the subsequent violence that broke out on December 15, 2019. He was arrested in this case on February 17, 2021. He is also seeking an ad-interim stay on the trial court’s order.
Imam, in his plea, has also highlighted that he was not at the place of occurrence at the alleged time of violence, with call detail records, too, attesting his presence at Shaheen Bagh at the time and not the Jamia university .
On Thursday, Justice Sanjeev Narula issued notice on Imam’s main revision plea seeking setting aside of the trial court’s order on framing of charges, as well as on an application seeking an interim stay of the order, while orally remarking, “I’m not staying any order.”
In a separate plea filed earlier, Imam also sought setting aside of the supplementary chargesheet against him, stemming from this same FIR, primarily on the ground that there cannot be multiple proceedings for the same incident or offence against the same person.
The prosecution is anticipated to submit its response by April 24, when the court will consider both of Imam’s pleas together.
An FIR was registered at the New Friends Colony (NFC) police station under various provisions of the IPC, the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act (PDPP) and the Arms Act in following an incident of rioting at the Jamia university and Mata Mandir Marg on December 15, 2019.
Imam was not named in the FIR and was only implicated in this case in the first supplementary chargesheet that was filed by the police in April 2020.
On January 25, 2020, an FIR was registered at the Inter-State Cell, Crime Branch, against Imam for having delivered two speeches during anti-CAA protests, including the one at Jamia on December 13, 2019, under IPC sections 124A (waging war against the state), 153A (promoting communal enmity) and other offences. Despite the Inter-State Cell FIR, Imam was booked for the same offences in a supplementary chargesheet filed in relation to the 2019 NFC police FIR.
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