The Supreme Court on Tuesday heard the bail pleas of student activists in connection with the 2020 Delhi riots over the anti-CAA protests, where Sharjeel Imam expressed anguish over being labelled an “intellectual terrorist” by the police even before trial and conviction, and he made it clear that he had already been in custody before the riots and that his speeches could not be treated as proof of “criminal conspiracy”.
Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Umar Khalid, argued that Umar cannot be kept incarcerated as punishment for the protests he held, as the police claim he was part of a gang that wanted to overthrow the regime, and he countered this by asking how an academic could overthrow a regime with a speech that, as he showed in court, called for peace and love against violence.
Gulfisha Fatima, who has been in custody since her arrest, pressed for bail through her lawyer Abhishek Singhvi, who argued that the charges against her are yet to be framed and that she remains the only woman in prison while others arrested on similar charges have already secured bail, and he described her continued incarceration as “astonishing and unprecedented”.
Imam, represented by senior advocate Siddhartha Dave, told a bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and N V Anjaria that he had been “labelled as a dangerous intellectual terrorist” without a full trial or a single conviction, and he added, “I would like to say that I am not a terrorist, as I have been called by the respondent; I am not an anti-national as called by the State; I am a citizen of this country, a citizen by birth, and I have not been convicted for any offence till now,” as he argued that his 28 January 2020 arrest pre-dated the riots and therefore excluded his physical presence.
He asserted that he was being prosecuted solely for his speeches, saying, “I am being prosecuted for speeches I gave, snippets of which were played in court,” and he added that the FIR for conspiracy had been registered in March 2020 when he had already been in custody for over a month, which led him to argue that “my speeches by themselves did not lead to riots,” and that the prosecution must show “something more” to substantiate a charge of criminal conspiracy.
The bench questioned him about the police’s claim that his speeches “created a platform for riots to take place so that the conspiracy gets fructified,” prompting Justice Kumar to ask, “Can we take your argument that these speeches won’t constitute a terrorist act?”, although Imam maintained that they could neither constitute terrorism nor conspiracy and that he was distressed by the State’s descriptions of him, saying, “This label has caused anguish to me.”
Representing Umar Khalid, senior advocate Kapil Sibal argued that his client could not be kept in jail “as if to say that I will punish you for your protests,” and he pointed out that Umar was not in Delhi when the riots occurred, stressing, “You cannot attribute someone else’s speech to me and say I am responsible for the riots,” while also questioning how an academic could possibly overthrow the State, asking, “What can I do to overthrow the State?”
Sibal played in court Khalid’s 17 February 2020 Amravati speech, where he said Umar had urged that violence be met with peace and hatred with love, asking, “How is this a violation of the UAPA?”, and he argued that “nobody can call his speech inflammatory in any sense of the word,” as he emphasised that students have historically agitated on issues and that protests cannot be grounds for prolonged incarceration.
Gulfisha Fatima’s counsel, senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, contended that her nearly six-year incarceration amounted to “endless custody”, pointing out that charges against her were still not framed and asking the court, “Where have you alleged regime change as the heart of your chargesheet?”, as he argued that the police’s assertions of a pan-India conspiracy or a supposed “regime change operation” were absent from the formal record.
Singhvi noted that the prosecution had cited 939 witnesses and that the delay in trial was “astonishing and unprecedented,” arguing that Gulfisha deserved parity with co-accused Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita and Asif Iqbal Tanha, who were granted bail in 2021, and he stressed that “mine is a much lesser case,” adding that allegations of a “secret meeting” mirrored those levelled against the others, asking, “How can it be a secret meeting?” when the material had been uploaded on social media.
Opposing the bail pleas, the Delhi Police maintained that the riots were not spontaneous but an “orchestrated, pre-planned and well-designed” attack on national sovereignty, as the activists — including Khalid, Imam, Fatima, Meeran Haider and Asif Rehman — remain booked under the UAPA and the erstwhile IPC for allegedly being the “masterminds” of the violence that left 53 dead and over 700 injured during the anti-CAA and anti-NRC protests.
With PTI inputs