Jammu court grants bail to PhD scholar Aala Fazili arrested in 2022 for seditious article from 2011

A National Investigation Agency (NIA) Court in Jammu recently granted bail to Aala Fazili, a postdoctoral scholar at Kashmir University, who has been in jail for nearly three years over allegations of authoring a seditious article on digital monthly digital magazine The Kashmir Walla [Abdul Aala Fazili V/S UT of Jammu and Kashmir]..Additional Sessions Judge Madan Lal noted that the evidence connecting Fazili to the authorship of the article was "very weak" and the government had not acted for nearly 11 years from 2011 when the article was published to 2022 when the arrest was made."The applicant is behind the bars for the last about 2 years and 9 months. There is very weak evidence which connects the applicant with the authorship of the Article and if the applicant due to weak evidence is acquitted at the end of the trial, his period of incarceration would not be compensated by any means," the Court observed..The article titled 'The Shackles of Slavery Will Break' was reportedly published in 2011 on the website The Kashmir Walla. Fazili was arrested in April 2022 by police about eleven years later..The Court noted that the government neither took notice nor any action on the said article from November 2011 till April 2022 from which it could be inferred that the article neither affected law and order nor aggravated the militancy related incidents..The State Investigation Agency (SIA) had accused Fazili of attempting to provoke unrest and incite violence through the article. Officials claimed the piece was "highly provocative and seditious" and aimed at misleading youth and disrupting communal harmony in Jammu and Kashmir. They further alleged that the article glorified terrorism and sought to instigate unlawful activities..However, the Court rejected these claims, ruling that denying bail under such circumstances would amount to a violation of constitutional rights. It also pointed out that none of the ten witnesses examined had confirmed Fazili’s authorship of the article. Moreover, the Court asked why the State had not taken any action against the article for over a decade if it was indeed as inflammatory as alleged..The Court cited a judgment of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court which had previously evaluated the article's severity and determined that it did not incite armed rebellion, violence, or terrorism. The High Court further affirmed that the article neither undermined the State’s authority nor encouraged acts of violence..Accordingly, the Court allowed the plea and granted bail to Fazili..Advocate Suhail Ahmad Dar appeared for Fazili.Additional Public Prosecutor appeared for Jammu and Kashmir.[Read Order]