A Delhi court on Sunday evening granted bail to nine Indian Youth Congress (IYC) activists arrested by Delhi Police in connection with protests at the India AI Impact summit. 

Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) Ravi of the Patiala House Court ordered the release of Krishna Hari, Narshimha Yadav, Kundan Kumar Yadav, Ajay Kumar Singh, Jitendra Singh Yadav, Raja Gurjar, Ajay Kumar Vimal @ Bantu, Saurabh Singh and Arbaz Khan. 

In a detailed order, the judge held that the Youth Congress’ protest amounted to “political dissent”, not “recidivist violence or organised crime.”

“The protest, at highest, constituted symbolic political critique during, a public event: T-shirts with leadership imagery, non-inciteful slogans bereft of communal/regional taint, and transient assembly. No evidence discloses property defacement, or delegate panic; exit was orderly via escort,” the Court noted. 

Judge Ravi added that prolonged pre-trial detention, bereft of any investigative necessity violates the right to liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution.

Members of the IYC staged a protest inside the India AI Impact Summit held at Bharat Mandapam on February 20. Some of them removed their shirts to reveal T-shirts with slogans like “PM is compromised” and criticisms of the India-US trade deal, before chanting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and government policies. 

Police have so far made fourteen arrests in connection with the case, and accused them of breaching security and raising alleged "anti-national" slogans at the venue.

The Court noted that none of the criminal provisions invoked against the accused carried a punishment of more than seven years in jail. It rejected the Police’s argument that the sentence may run consecutively.

The Court said the police’s argument was “bereft of jurisprudential moorings at this interlocutory bail juncture, where the judicial gaze is riveted not on the mirage of potential conviction but on the stark realities of pre-trial liberty”.

“Pre-trial detention, severed from any imperative necessity and devoid of persisting investigative demands, ineluctably devolves into an illicit premptive punishment antecedent to conviction - a profound aberration fundamentally a t odds with the bedrock axioms of criminal jurisprudence, which exalt liberty as the governing norm and incarceration as the narrowly circumscribed exception,” the Judge added. 

The prosecution had argued that the protests by the accused posed a threat to national security, international relations and national integrity by disrupting a high-profile global event.

It was stated that the investigation is still going on, and there is a risk of the accused tampering with the evidence.

However, the lawyers appearing for the activists argued that all alleged offences carry punishments of less than seven years, placing the case in Category A under Satender Kumar Antil, where bail is the norm.

The protest was peaceful, symbolic political dissent with no violence, damage, or threat, and is protected under Articles 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(b) of the Constitution, it was stated.

After considering the case, the Court ordered the release of the nine activists on bail.

Senior Advocate Tanveer Ahmed Mir with advocates Roopesh Singh Bhadauria, Chitwan Godara, Rishav Ranjan, Aman Prasad, Vivek Punia, Sumit Rawat, Keshav Nagi, Litesh Batra, Maroof Khan, Kashif Ahmad Khan, Prakhar Vashisth and Amrit Yadav appeared for the IYC activists.

Delhi Police was represented by Additional Public Prosecutors (APPs) Atul Srivastava and Kartikey Sharma.