NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Wednesday allowed police to take voice sample of activist Sharjeel Imam, arrested on sedition charges, for comparing it with that in a video clip in which he is purportedly making a hate speech and targeting the government.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Purushotam Pathak passed the order on an application by Delhi Police and directed that the accused, currently in judicial custody, be produced at CFSL on February 13.
The judge said "in view of the facts and circumstances of the case" and the judgment of the Supreme Court cited by the investigating officer for taking voice sample, he was allowing the application for taking voice sample of the accused.
The court noted the submission of Delhi Police that Imam has given "speeches against the government which were uploaded on social media" and it wanted to compare his voice with the voice in the video clip.
"Accused has made speeches and to make out an offence under section 124-A (sedition) IPC on ground that speech of the accused spread hatred; it has to ascertain that the said speeches were made by the accused and for that purpose, it is appropriate that his voice should be compared," police told the court.
Punishment under the section 124-A of IPC ranges from imprisonment up to three years to a life term. The court had on February 6 sent the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) research scholar to judicial custody.
Imam was arrested from Bihar's Jehanabad on January 28 for allegedly making inflammatory speeches at the Jamia Millia Islamia University here and in Aligarh. He was brought to Delhi the next day. The court had earlier sent Imam to police custody.
Police had booked Imam, who came into limelight during the ongoing protest in Shaheen Bagh, on January 26 for allegedly delivering inflammatory speeches against the amended Citizenship Act and a possible National Register of Citizens.
According to the police, Imam, a resident of Bihar, delivered "very inflammatory and instigatory speeches in his opposition to CAA and NRC".
"He had previously delivered one such speech in Jamia Millia Islamia on December 13 last year and thereafter one even more inflammatory against the government which is being widely circulated on social media," they had said.