On the 22nd of October 2024, LiveLaw – a legal news portal founded by MA Rashid – tweeted that the bail hearing of Sharjeel Imam, the “student activist,” had been delayed again.
“Student activist #SharjeelImam‘s petition assailing delay in hearing of his bail plea in the Delhi Riots Larger Conspiracy case not taken up today by the #SupremeCourt Next hearing likely on Friday ie 25th October” read the tweet.
In their previous tweet, they wrote, “#SupremeCourt to hear student activist #SharjeelImam‘s petition assailing Delhi HC’s delay in deciding his bail plea in the 2020 #DelhiRiots larger conspiracy case Bench: Justices Bela M Trivedi and SC Sharma. Imam has been in custody for over 4 yrs”.
The archived links of the tweet can be accessed here and here.
Student activist #SharjeelImam's petition assailing delay in hearing of his bail plea in the Delhi Riots Larger Conspiracy case not taken up today by the #SupremeCourt
— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) October 22, 2024
Next hearing likely on Friday ie 25th October https://t.co/9tWYIYuE7Z
The tweets by LiveLaw essentially made the following assertions:
- The hearing was in the Supreme Court
- The hearing was about the delay in the High Court regarding the hearing of his bail petition
- The hearing pertained to the Delhi Riots larger conspiracy case (FIR 59/20)
- The bench of the Supreme Court which postponed the hearing comprised of Justice Bela Trivedi and SC Sharma
There was indeed a hearing in the Supreme Court in an ongoing case involving Sharjeel Imam, however, it was not a bail hearing, it was not about the delay in High Court, it was not pertaining to the Delhi Riots larger conspiracy case.
We checked the Supreme Court listings to understand what ongoing case was being heard in the Supreme Court of India pertaining to Sharjeel Imam.
As can be seen, the Sharjeel Imam vs Govt of NCT and others case (#152) has been assigned a diary number. The Diary Number assigned by the Supreme Court is 4730-2020.
We then searched the case by diary number.
The search threw up the result for the case.
As can be seen, the diary number is the same – 4730/2020 – and the petitioner is Sharjeel Imam.
When one clicks on “view”, the website of the Supreme Court of India throws up details of the case.
As one can see, the diary number reflected is the same. What acts as proof that it is the same case that LiveLaw was tweeting about is that the date of hearing as listed in the Supreme Court website is 22nd October 2024. The LiveLaw tweet was also on the same date.
According to the information on the Supreme Court website, the case was listed in front of a bench comprising of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar.
In an August hearing, for example, the bench comprising of Justices Sanjiv Kumar, Sanjay Khanna and R Mahadevan had ordered that the “respondent-states will obtain instructions as to whether the said states have any objection in case the trial at Delhi proceeds and the chargesheet, if any, filed elsewhere are transferred to the court in seisin of the matter at Delhi”.
The order itself makes it evident that the case in the Supreme Court has nothing to do with bail in the High Court but is about the clubbing of FIRs.
This case pertains to a 2020 plea by Sharjeel Imam after he was arrested for seditious speeches. FIRs were filed against him in Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh. The petition by Sharjeel Imam in 2020 essentially requested for the clubbing of the FIRs and for the hearing in the sedition cases (for the speeches he delivered) to be continued in Delhi. If the Court agreed to the clubbing of the FIRs, Sharjeel Imam would get default “bail” in the other FIRs in different states with the case being heard only in Delhi.
In a 2020 order, the states that were set to respond to the petition at the time were also mentioned, proving, that the case pending in the Supreme Court had nothing to do with bail hearings or the conspiracy case, but in fact, was about clubbing of the FIRs in the sedition case pertaining to the speeches he had delivered in Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligargh Muslim University.
It is, therefore, evident that the information published by LiveLaw is misleading.
The explanation provided by the cabal who is set on ensuring that Sharjeel Imam, the UAPA accused Islamist, and others like Umar Khalid are painted as the victim of the system was that there indeed is a “hearing” pending before Justice Bela Trivedi’s bench.
Mohammad Zubair of AltNews, who regularly shields Islamists and paints a target on Hindus, posted a screenshot from the cause-list showing a listing of Sharjeel Imam’s petition in front of a bench comprising of Justice Bela Trivedi and Justice Satish Chandra.
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) October 23, 2024
Interestingly, the screenshot posted by Zubair, meant to discredit the report confirmed the report.
The screenshot proves that the only ongoing case in the Supreme Court by Sharjeel Imam is the one to club FIRs and not the bail hearing.
The screenshot shared by Mohammad Zubair is a listing of a FRESH petition filed by Sharjeel Imam only on the 9th of October 2024. The verification of the petition, as is a legal requirement, was done on the 21st of October 2024.
The Supreme Court website clearly specifies that the petition is listed for admission.
When the petition is listed for admission, it cannot be deemed as an ongoing hearing especially after 2 days of verification and when the petition hasn’t even been accepted by the court yet.
The sleight of hand by LiveLaw is evidenced by the fact that in the past, LiveLaw reported hearings of fresh petitions by clearly mentioning that a fresh petition had been filed – pending acceptance by the court.
This only goes to show that LiveLaw deliberate left that detail out from its reportage to give the impression that a regular bail hearing was delayed by the Supreme Court so that a narrative can be created in favour of Sharjeel Imam and against Justice Bela Trivedi – which has been the norm in the Left-Islamist circle.
To remind our readers – even when the bail application of Umar Khalid was pending before the Supreme Court, which was eventually withdrawn by Umar Khalid and his lawyer Kapil Sibal, there was a concerted effort to tarnish the image of Justice Trivedi and an active campaign to ensure that the case can be heard by a different judge – spearheaded by Prashant Bhushan and Kapil Sibal. OpIndia had written about how this is an effort at potential bench fixing. To the CJI’s credit, he had put his foot down and ensured that the bench fixing efforts fail. It was after the CJI’s decision that Sibal had decided to withdraw the bail application of Umar Khalid from the Supreme Court and approach the lower court again to “try his luck”. The detailed article can be read here.
This misinformation and half truth by LiveLaw and Mohammad Zubair seems to be a step in a similar direction.
Case against Sharjeel Imam
Sharjeel Imam was booked by several states in 2020 for his provocative speeches during anti-CAA, including the call for ‘cutting off’ Assam from the rest of India. FIRs were filed at Police stations in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur for his speech.
Imam was also accused of making provocative speeches outside Jamia Milia Islamia University in December 2019 that led to violence outside the campus. In 2022, a Delhi court framed charges of sedition and UAPA against him for his inflammatory speeches against CAA.
Sharjeel Imam was arrested by Delhi Police on 28th January 2020, from Bihar over inflammatory speeches against the Citizenship Amendment Act, advocating for the secession of Assam from the rest of India. He delivered several such speeches in December 2019 and January 2020 at various places including Jamia Millia Islamia University and Aligarh Muslim University.
The accusations against Sharjeel Imam were framed under sections 124A (sedition), 153A, 153B, 505 of the IPC, and 13 of the UAPA. Imam has been charged with sedition, promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, imputations prejudicial to national integration, and public mischief under the Indian Penal Code, and indulging in unlawful activities under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
As per the Delhi police chargesheet against Sharjeel Imam in the matter, he offered statements inciting hatred, contempt, and disaffection toward the central government, as well as instigating the people who resulted in the December 2019 riots.
Editors note: This article has been updated by the the explanation offered by AltNews and our counter to those claims.
Addendum
After the publication of this article, Manu Sebastian, the managing editor of LiveLaw took to X to offer an explanation and call the report by OpIndia “fake news”.
OpIndia @OpIndia_com has published an article written by its Chief Editor Nupur Sharma @UnSubtleDesi targeting LiveLaw @LiveLawIndia. The article is malicious, factually wrong & a blatant misrepresentation of the court proceedings, which can amount to contempt of court. Thread pic.twitter.com/7Rn7b8aAtP
— Manu Sebastian (@manuvichar) October 23, 2024
In a long thread, Manu Sebastian called the report “malicious, factually wrong & a blatant misrepresentation of the court proceedings, which can amount to contempt of court”.
In the thread, Sebastian made the following claims (the following are verbatim quotes from Manu Sebastian’s thread on X):
- LiveLaw had posted that Sharjeel Imam’s petition regarding bail in the Delhi riots larger conspiracy case was listed before a bench of Justices Bela Trivedi & SC Sharma on October 22. LiveLaw had also updated that the matter was posted to Oct 25 as it was not taken up that day.
- What the OpIndia article terribly concealed was that there were two petitions of Sharjeel Imam which were listed in the Supreme Court on October 22 before two different benches (of Justices Khanna & Trivedi respectively).
- One petition (WP (Crl) 422/24) was listed before Justice Bela Trivedi’s bench. This was seeking directions for expeditious hearing of his bail plea in the Delhi High Court in the riots conspiracy case. The other petition of Sharjeel Imam (Diary no.4730/2020) was listed before Justice Khanna. This petition was to consolidate various FIRs against him.
- What OpIndia omitted to tell its readers was that both the petitions of Imam were listed on the same day in the Supreme Court before different benches.
The updates given by LiveLaw about Imam’s petition before Justice Trivedi’s bench can be verified by anyone from the Supreme Court’s website by searching the case status of Diary No.47036/24 or WP(crl) 422/24 pic.twitter.com/1KccHS5j6O
— Manu Sebastian (@manuvichar) October 23, 2024
Interestingly, in his need to defend the shoddy reportage of LiveLaw, Manu Sebastian misrepresented facts yet again and deliberately left out critical details. In his explanation, Manu Sebastian was right that there was indeed 1 petition listed in front of Justice Bela Trivedi – a fact that OpIndia missed because it was not an ongoing case and LiveLaw had no report on its website indicating the same.
While Manu Sebastian is maintaining that it was a bail petition which was listed in front of Justice Bela Trivedi. He says in his thread, in an attempt to counter OpIndia, that LiveLaw reported that the bail hearing was posted before Bela Trivedi on the 22nd of October and that the matter was posted on the 25th of October.
The critical information that Manu Sebastian missed in his thread is that this is a FRESH petition filed by Sharjeel Imam which is not at a hearing stage as far as bail is concerned. The FRESH petition was verified only on the 21st and on the 25th, it is set to be heard for ADMISSION. This would mean that on the 25th and thereafter, the court would first decide whether the petition itself is to be admitted. If the court decides to admit the petition, only then would the hearing on the bail and the prayers mentioned in the petition start. The court can just as well refuse to admit the petition and if that happens, the Supreme Court would not be hearing the merits of the bail and the prayers made in the petition at all.
Therefore, it is important to mention here that there is, currently, only ONE ongoing case in the Supreme Court pertaining to Sharjeel Imam – which is one that was filed in 2020 – for the clubbing of FIRs. The petition to club FIRs is in the hearing stage, while the FRESH bail application is not. The latter has not even been admitted yet.
This critical detail which is being omitted by the likes of Manu Sebastian and Mohammad Zubair serve a specific purpose.
As soon as the news was posted by LiveLaw, which Manu Sebastian now defends, there were a flurry of tweets blaming Justice Bela Trivedi and painting Shajeel Imam as an innocent man denied justice. Pertinently, LiveLaw too had called Sharjeel Imam an “activist”.
The tweets in response to the reportage by LiveLaw, which missed critical details, led to several reactions where the Supreme Court was called a brothel (kotha) and assailed for denying justice and delaying giving bail to Sharjeel Imam.
Further, Justice Bela Trivedi was personally targeted.
The misrepresentation by LiveLaw led to personal targeting of a judge and contemptuous statements against the Supreme Court. Had LiveLaw represented the facts accurately, stating that it is a FRESH petition and that it had only been verified 2 days ago, allegations of bias and delay in hearing would not have arisen. Even in Manu Sebastian’s explanation, this important detail is missing, furthering the narrative that the Supreme Court, especially Justice Bela Trivedi, is deliberately delaying the bail proceedings of Sharjeel Imam.
