HC seeks police's reply on Sharjeel's plea against order giving time to complete probe under UAPA

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought response of the Delhi Police on a plea by former JNU student Sharjeel Imam, arrested in a case related to alleged inflammatory speeches during the protests against CAA and NRC, challenging a trial court order granting more time to police to conclude the investigation.

Justice V Kameswar Rao, who conducted the hearing through video conferencing, issued notice to the Delhi Police and listed the matter for further hearing on June 10.

The police have been asked to file its response within two weeks.

In the plea, the accused has challenged the trial court's April 25 order by which the Delhi Police was granted three more months, beyond statutory 90 days, to complete the investigation in the case under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

Imam was arrested on January 28 from Bihar's Jehanabad district in the case related to violent protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act near the Jamia Millia Islamia University in December last year.

The statutory period of 90 days from the arrest was concluded on April 27.

He has also sought default bail in the matter on the ground that the investigation was not concluded within the statutory period of 90 days and when the police had filed an application for more time to complete the investigation, he was not given a notice as required under the law.

The trial court had recently dismissed the bail plea.

The trial court had said that the order extending the period of investigation was passed before expiry of the statutory time period of 90 days.

"Since the time period to conclude investigation has already been extended as per section 43 D (2) of UAPA, I am of the considered opinion that application for release of the accused on statutory bail is bereft of merits and the same is accordingly dismissed," the trial court judge had said in the order.

Section 43-D (2) of UAPA provides that if it is not possible to complete the investigation within the 90 days period, then upon the report of the public prosecutor indicating the progress of the probe and the specific reasons for the detention of the accused beyond the 90 days period, after satisfaction, the court can extend the period of the probe to 180 days.

In the petition before the high court, Imam complained that he was not even produced before the court for subsequent remands, every 15 days as per the mandate of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

The plea added that the investigating agency, in its April 25 application, only sought extension of time for investigation and it had not sought to extend his judicial custody and, therefore, he was eligible for statutory bail.

"The application (of police) was devoid of the genuine 'compelling reasons' that are required to be disclosed for extension of time beyond 90 days. The application stated that on a careful analysis of the speech of the accused section 13 of the UAPA Act was invoked. But it is unclear why the supposed 'careful' analysis took 88 days or what additional facts have been discovered subsequent to the eight days of police custody to merit invocation of UAPA on the 88th day of custody."