The Supreme Court of India has called for responses from Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, and Arunachal Pradesh regarding the potential transfer of all sedition trials against former JNU student Sharjeel Imam to Delhi. Imam, who faces multiple charges for allegedly making inflammatory speeches, has requested the consolidation of his trials to manage the cases more efficiently.
A bench consisting of Justices Sanjiv Khanna, Sanjay Kumar, and R Mahadevan is overseeing the matter, with the next hearing scheduled in four weeks. During the session, senior advocate Siddharth Dave, representing Imam, highlighted that chargesheets had already been filed in Assam and Manipur, raising the issue of default bail in Assam.
The apex court’s inquiry focuses on whether the respondent states have any objections to transferring the cases to a single court in Delhi, which could streamline the legal proceedings and possibly expedite the trial process.
The plea for consolidation, initially filed in 2020, seeks to address the logistical and judicial complexities of conducting multiple trials across different states. In May 2020, the court requested responses from the involved states and provided the Delhi government an additional opportunity to file its reply.
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Sharjeel Imam’s arrest by the Delhi Police’s crime branch on January 28, 2020, from Bihar’s Jehanabad came after his purportedly provocative speeches at Jamia Millia Islamia University and Aligarh Muslim University during protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA). These speeches, circulated on social media, led to charges of sedition under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), among other accusations.
