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As per the chargesheet, there were incidents of riots at Jamia, New Friends Colony, Seelampur, Darya Ganj, North East Delhi in December 2019, post Imam's speeches and dissemination of material by pamphlets by adoption of strategy propagated by him
A division bench of the Supreme Court today has refused to entertain an Article 32 petition filed by Sharjeel Imam, an accused in the larger conspiracy of Northeast Delhi riots in 2020.
Justices Bela M Trivedi and SC Sharma noted that Imam could not have moved an Article 32 petition before the top court while his bail plea was pending before the Delhi High Court.
Senior Advocate Siddharth Dave, appearing for Imam, clarified that he was not pressing on the prayer for bail. Dave added that he was more on the High Court's delay in hearing the bail plea.
The court accordingly went on to direct the High Court to hear the bail plea expeditiously.
Last month, Delhi High Court, had rejected the early hearing petition filed by Sharjeel Imam for his pending bail petition maintaining that the bail plea would be heard on the already scheduled date of October 7, 2024.
Imam's bail plea has challenged the order, dated 11 February 2022, wherein the Additional Sessions Judge Sameer Bajpai of Karkardooma court had previously denied any relief to the JNU student stating that Imam's speeches intended to create 'public disorder' and 'incitement to violence' and also appeared to challenge the territorial integrity and sovereignty of India.
Sharjeel Imam was taken into custody in January 2020 after he allegedly delivered several provocative speeches that were accused of inciting violence during anti-CAA demonstrations in Delhi and other states.
These cases were filed under the anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) against Imam for allegedly making inflammatory speeches in the Jamia area in Delhi and Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizenship (NRC) in 2020.
Notably, two speeches delivered by Sharjeel Imam in December 2019 were included in the charge sheet. The first address was delivered in Delhi on December 13, 2019, and the second one was delivered in Aligarh on December 16. His remarks allegedly incited violence on December 15, 2019, during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) in Jamia Nagar, Delhi, according to the police.
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