NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday allowed the urgent listing of cops’ pleas against the discharge of Sharjeel Imam, Safoora Zargar, Asif Iqbal Tanha and eight others in the Jamia violence case.
A bench presided over by Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad allowed the listing of the case on February 13 after the Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta mentioned the plea.
The law officer said the court registry has raised certain objections in the petition. The Delhi Police was approaching the High Court on February 7, against the trial court’s February 4 order discharging 11 people, including student activists Sharjeel Imam and Asif Iqbal Tanha, in a violence case at Jamia Millia Islamia in December 2019.
In the order, Additional Sessions Judge Arul Varma referred to Gandhi’s quote: “Conscience is the source
of dissent.” Investigative agencies should be able to decide the difference between dissent and insurrection and said Imam and others were roped in as ‘’scapegoats” in the case, the judge said in the order.
“The desideratum is for the investigative agencies to discern the difference between dissent and insurrection. The latter has to be quelled indisputably. However, the former has to be given space, a forum, for dissent is perhaps reflective of something which pricks a citizen’s conscience,” the order said.
Imam was accused of instigating the riots by delivering a provocative speech at the Jamia Milia University on December 13, 2019. He will continue to remain in jail as he is an accused in the larger conspiracy case of the 2020 northeast Delhi riots.