The Delhi High Court on Monday sought responses from the Tihar Jail authorities and Delhi Police on a plea by JNU scholar and Delhi riots accused Sharjeel Imam seeking permission to access research material stored on a pen drive and use prison computers for his PhD work.

Justice Sanjeev Narula directed that that the responses should be filed in four weeks.

Advocate Ahmad Ibrahim appeared for Imam and argued that Imam has been in custody since January 2020.

"At the time of his arrest, he was in the final year of his PhD. His synopsis has been approved by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the University [JNU]. I am asking that he be allowed his research material," Ibrahim said.

He added that Imam was not seeking access to the internet but only the computer systems available in jail.

When the Bench asked him why physical copies of the study material cannot be supplied to Imam, Ibrahim said that it would run into lakhs of pages.

Imam enrolled as a doctoral scholar in Modern History at Jawaharlal Nehru University before his arrest in January 2020.

He has approached the High Court seeking permission to receive research material from his lawyers on a pen drive and use computer facilities available inside the jail to continue work on his PhD. He said the material was neither banned nor restricted by the Government of India.

According to Imam, the trial court had in April 2026 directed the Superintendent of Prison to consider a similar request. The then Superintendent allowed Imam to receive the pen drive from his lawyers.

However, the Superintendent was transferred before the material could be delivered.

The new Superintendent later declined the request, saying Imam could not access the research material or prison computers without a specific court order.

In July, the trial court refused to grant Imam permission to access research material. The judge left it to the discretion of the Superintendent of Prison to decide whether Imam should be allowed access to the material.