Jamia violence case: Delhi Police move High Court against discharge of Sharjeel Imam, Safoora Zargar and others

The Delhi Police has approached the Delhi High Court challenging the order of a trial court discharging Sharjeel Imam, Safoora Zargar, Asif Iqbal Tanha and eight others from the 2019 Jamia violence case. .The petition is likely to be listed for hearing in the next few days. .In its order on Saturday, the trial court at Saket had discharged Imam, Tanha, Zargar, Mohammed Abuzar, Umair Ahmad, Mohammed Shoaib, Mahmood Anwar, Mohammed Qasim, Mohammed Bilal Nadeem, Shahzar Raza Khan and Chanda Yadav.Delhi Police had alleged that they were involved in committing offences such as rioting and unlawful assembly during the violence that ensued at the University in 2019.However, after considering the case, Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Arul Varma framed the charges only against Mohammed Ilyas and discharged the others. .In his detailed order, Judge Varma heavily criticised the Delhi Police for filing an "ill-conceived" chargesheet, and added that their case was "devoid of irrefragable evidence".The court said that though the crowd created havoc and disruption on that day, the police failed to apprehend the actual perpetrators and roped in Imam, Tanha, Zargar and others as "scapegoats". It added that the police have arbitrarily chosen to make some people from crowd as accused and others as police witnesses. This “cherry-picking” was detrimental to the precept of fairness, it said..Judge Verma added that dissent is an extension of the invaluable fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression, which was a right that the courts we are sworn to uphold."The desideratum is for the investigative agencies to discern the difference between dissent and insurrection. The latter has to be quelled indisputably. However, the former has to be given space, a forum, for dissent is perhaps reflective of something which pricks a citizen's conscience.".The present case relates to the violence that took place in and around Jamia Millia Islamia in December 2019 after some students and locals announced that they would walk towards Parliament to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC).However, the protests soon took a violent turn, and as the police used force to quell them, some of the protesting students allegedly entered the University.