Sharjeel Imam did not ask anyone to pick up weapons but his speeches captured people's imagination, incited them: Delhi Court

Speeches and other activities by Sharjeel Imam against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) did not contain any exhortation to people to pick up weapons or kill people but his speeches and activities mobilised the public which disrupted Delhi and might be the main reason in outbreak of the Delhi riots of February 2020, a Delhi court said on Saturday while denying bail to Imam. .Imam's speeches were so powerful that it captured the imagination of the people belonging to particular community and incited them to take part in disruptive activities which finally resulted in the riots, Additional Sessions Judge Sameer Bajpai of Karkardooma court said in his order."Although the applicant did not ask anybody to pick the weapons and kill the people but his speeches and activities mobilised the public which disrupted the city and might be the main reason in outbreak of the riots. Further, through inflammatory speeches and social media, the applicant skillfully manipulated the real facts and incited the public in order to create a havoc in the city. Further, the words as used by the applicant in his different speeches were so powerful that they captured the mind of the people of a particular community and incited them to take part in the disruptive activities which finally resulted into the riots," the order said.After the speeches of Imam and due to his activities, a number of protesters and protest sites in Delhi increased and the crowd started blocking the main roads which consequently put the whole city on a standstill, the Court said."Finally, just after the speeches and the alleged activities of the applicant, on different dates and places, the riots occurred causing violence, huge damage to the public property and death of a large number of people," the judge stated.The observations were made while denying statutory bail to Imam in a sedition and Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) case filed against him for allegedly making inflammatory speeches in Delhi's Jamia area and Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in December 2019. .The case relates to the speeches made by Imam at AMU and Jamia area while protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizenship (NRC).He was arrested in the case on January 28, 2020.In July 2022, the trial court had rejected his first bail application in this case.It was Imam's case that he had already spent four years in jail out of the maximum sentence of seven years and is, therefore, eligible for statutory bail.He said that the offence of sedition under Section 124A of Indian Penal Code has been kept in abeyance by the Supreme Court of India and the UAPA provisions invoked against him do not carry more than seven years sentence..However, the Court said that though it cannot take into consideration the offence of sedition under Section 124A IPC, the acts of Imam will qualify as sedition as per "normal dictionary meaning". "Although the court cannot take into consideration section 124A IPC but if the acts and actions of the applicant are considered, in a normal dictionary meaning they can be termed as seditious," the Court ruled while rejecting his bail plea..[Read Order]