NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Saturday held that student activist Sharjeel Imam violated the conditions of his interim bail by coming in contact with the media, rejecting his defence that he neither interacted with journalists nor gave any interview during his seven-day release.
The court, however, stopped short of cancelling Imam’s bail, noting that his interim bail duration was due to end on Saturday itself.
Additional Sessions Judge Sameer Bajpai of Karkardooma courts, while hearing a Delhi Police plea seeking cancellation of Imam’s interim bail, said the video evidence showed that a journalist was present in the same room as the activist while his brother was being interviewed. “Thus, apparently the accused has flouted the term ii of the bail order dated September 22, whereby he was granted interim bail,” the court held.
The counsel contended that the news video was a compilation of clips from three unrelated sources and that Imam was merely seen with family members, relatives and friends in a private video. Imam also argued that there was no restriction on his brother speaking to the media. As part of the conditions imposed on him, the court had barred him from using social media or coming in contact with any media person and restricted his meetings to family members, relatives and friends. The defence also relied on Supreme Court judgments to argue that bail cancellation powers must be exercised with caution and only in compelling circumstances.
Imam had been granted interim bail by the court in the Delhi riots larger conspiracy case, from October 4 to 10 to attend the functions of his cousin brother’s marriage.
The two relied on a May 18 Supreme Court judgment granting bail to Syed Iftikhar Andrabi in a narco-terror case investigated by the National Investigation Agency.
In that ruling, a bench of justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan expressed “serious reservations” about the reasoning adopted in the January 5 order.
