Supreme Court seeks Delhi govt's reply on Sharjeel Imam's plea for clubbing cases

The Supreme Court on Friday sought a response from the Delhi government on a plea by Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Sharjeel Imam for clubbing of multiple FIRs lodged against him for his controversial comment during an anti-CAA-NPR-NRC protest.

A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and Sanjiv Khanna decided to consider the petition filed by him for consideration after 10 days.

Senior advocate Sidharth Dave, appearing for Sharjeel, submitted that as many as five FIRs have been lodged on the basis of same speech in states of Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh. He also pointed stringent provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act have also been against him.

He wanted to club these cases. He also cited the Supreme Court's recent order in the Arnab Goswami case, where the TV journalist was given a similar relief on lodging of over 100 FIRs across the country for his remark against Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Dave submitted that there were two speeches made by him one in Jamia Millia Islamia University and another one in Aligarh Muslim University.

The bench, however, said there was nothing wrong in police registering the FIRs, if they came to know about some cognisable offence.

The court asked the counsel to serve the copy of the petition to the Delhi government and put it for hearing after 10 days.

Delhi Police have invoked sedition charges against Sharjeel, alleging his speech "promoted enmity" between people that led to riots in and around Delhi's Jamia Milia Islamia University on December 15.

He was arrested from his native place at Bihar's Jehanabad district on January 28 after his speech for cutting chicken's neck, connecting India to North East had gone viral. Delhi police filed its charge sheet against him this month only.