NEW DELHI: Delhi Police Thursday opposed in the Delhi High Court the bail plea of JNU student Sharjeel Imam, arrested in a case related to alleged inflammatory speeches made by him during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) in 2019.
The police said the trial court’s January 24 bail order, which has been challenged by Sharjeel Imam, is explicitly clear, legally tenable and does not merit any intervention by the high court.
A bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Rajnish Bhatnagar listed the matter for further hearing on April 29. When the counsel for Imam urged the court to give an early date of hearing, the bench said, ‘don’t heckle the court’ and ‘don’t try to intimidate the court’.
The police, in its status report filed in response to Imam’s bail plea, said the accused has wrongly mentioned that there are ‘more than 170 witnesses to be examined’ whereas factually there are only 43 witnesses in the case most of whom are formal in nature.
‘The court has been pleased to frame charges on March 15, 2022 proposing day-to-day trial in the matter and vide order dated March 15, 2022 posted the matter for admission/denial on March 26, 2022 and for prosecution evidence on March 28-29, 2022. Thus, there is no delay in trial which in any case was already expedited by the trial court in the impugned order itself,’ the report, filed through special public prosecutor Amit Prasad, said. There were no good grounds to entertain the present appeal, it said.