[Jamia Violence 2019] High Court allows urgent listing of Delhi Police’s plea against order discharging Sharjeel Imam & 10 others; to be heard on Monday

The Delhi High Court on Friday 'allowed' the urgent listing of a plea filed by Delhi Police challenging the Trial Court’s order discharging Sharjeel Imam and ten others in connection with the Jamia Milia Islamia University violence case of 2019.

Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta mentioned the matter before a division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad.

Allowing the mentioning, the division bench listed the matter for hearing on Monday, i.e. February 13.

It is to be noted that on February 7, the Delhi Police moved the High Court challenging the Trial Court’s order discharging Sharjeel Imam, Asif Iqbal Tanha, Sarfoora Zargar, and 8 others in the 2019 Jamia violence case.

Notably, Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Arul Varma of the Saket Court, had emphasized that “dissent is simply an extension of the invaluable fundamental right to free speech and expression under Article 19 of the Constitution of India” while discharging Imam, and others in the case.

“Dissent is nothing but an extension of the invaluable fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression contained in Article 19 of the Constitution of India, subject to the restrictions contained. It is therefore a right which we are sworn to uphold”, the Judge had said.

While discharging the 11 accused persons, the court had pulled up the Delhi Police and said, “The police were unable to apprehend the actual perpetrators behind the commission of the offence, but surely managed to rope the persons herein as scapegoats”.

“Investigating agencies should have incorporated the use of technology, or have gathered credible intelligence, and then only should have embarked on galvanizing the judicial system qua the accused herein…It should have abstained from filing such an ill-conceived chargesheets qua persons whose role was confined only to being part of a protest”, the Judge had added.

The Judge in the 32-page order had said, “Some anti-social elements within the crowd created an environment of disruption and did create havoc, however, the moot question remains: whether the accused persons herein were even prima facie complicit in taking part in that mayhem? The answer is an unequivocal ‘no’. Marshaling the facts as brought forth from a perusal of the chargesheet and three supplementary chargesheets, this Court cannot but arrive at the conclusion that the police were unable to apprehend the actual perpetrators behind the commission of the offence, but surely managed to rope the persons herein as scapegoats".

The FIR, in this case, was filed in connection with a protest held by students and residents of Jamia Nagar against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. The Trial court discharged Sharjeel Imam, Asif Iqbal Tanha, Sarfoora Zargar, Mohammed Abuzar, Umair Ahmad, Mohammed Shoaib, Mahmood Anwar, Mohammed Qasim, Mohammed Bilal Nadeem, Shahzar Raza Khan and Chanda Yadav.

All the accused persons were charged with offences under Sections 143, 147, 148, 149, 186, 323, 353, 332, 333, 308, 341, 427, 435, 120B and 34 of the Indian Penal Code.

Statue: The Indian Penal Code, The Constitution of India and the Code of Criminal Procedure