Shashwati Chowdhury
Published on: July 24 2022 at 18:16 IST
Sharjeel Imam was denied interim bail on Saturday by a Delhi court in FIR 22/2020 relating to the allegedly inflammatory speeches he made in Delhi’s Jamia neighbourhood and Aligarh Muslim University against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
In light of a recent Apex Court order that the sedition law will be kept in abeyance till the Union Government reconsiders the provision, Sharjeel Imam filed an interim bail application in a FIR against him that involved the offence of sedition under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code.
When the court has already issued an order denying Imam regular bail and framing charges against him on merits, Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat of the Karkardooma Courts said that there cannot be another bail application by Imam and another argument on the merits of the bail application.
As a result, the court can only make one bail order on the merits of the case, and it cannot make another order based on the merits in the in an interim bail application. Otherwise, this Court may simultaneously pass two bail orders on the case’s merits, on this logic. The case’s merits cannot be agitated in an interim bail application in view of the disposal of the previous bail application and orders on charge both dated 24.01.2022 the Court said.
According to the plea, Imam had been incarcerated for about 28 months when the maximum punishment for the offenses—excluding those under Section 124-A of the IPC — is up to seven years imprisionment.
Sections 124A (sedition), 153A (promote enmity between different groups on the grounds of religion, etc.), 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration), and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the IPC, as well as Section 13 (punishment for unlawful activities) of the UAPA, had been used by the court to charge Imam in this case.