A Delhi court on Monday granted
Additional Sessions Judge Sameer Bajpai of Karkardooma Courts granted Imam interim bail for 10 days, to allow him to attend his brother's wedding.
The court granted Sharjeel Imam interim bail from March 20 to March 30, 2026, upon furnishing a personal bond of ₹50,000 along with two sureties of the same amount.
The court directed that during this period the Imam must not contact any witnesses or persons connected to the case, must share his mobile number with the investigating officer and keep it active, and must refrain from interacting with the media or using social media.
He has also been instructed to meet only family members, relatives and friends and remain at his residence or at the venues of the wedding ceremonies mentioned in his application.
Sharjeel Imam, a research scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University and a prominent face of the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, has been in jail for six years since his arrest on January 28, 2020, under charges including sedition and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
The case relates to allegations that several student activists and protest organisers were part of a "larger conspiracy" behind the deadly violence that erupted in northeast Delhi in February 2020. Most of those killed in the violence were Muslims, and the violence is widely described as Hindutva-instigated attacks against Muslim protesters, contrary to the police version.
Those accused in the case include Tahir Hussain, Umar Khalid, Khalid Saifi, Ishrat Jahan, Meeran Haider, Gulfisha Fatima, Shifa-Ur-Rehman, Asif Iqbal Tanha, Shadab Ahmed, Tasleem Ahmed, Saleem Malik, Mohd Saleem Khan, Athar Khan, Safoora Zargar, Faizan Khan, Devangana Kalita, and Natasha Narwal.
Imam, now 36, was arrested after multiple FIRs were filed by police in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh over speeches he delivered during nationwide protests against the CAA and the proposed National Register of Citizens.
The CAA, passed in 2019, fast-tracks Indian citizenship for non-Muslim migrants, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians, from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who entered India before December 31, 2014. Critics argue that the law discriminates on religious grounds by excluding Muslims and violates the guarantees of equality and life under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.
During the anti-CAA protests, Imam had called for "chakka jam", or road blockades, as a form of protest. Police accused him of making "secessionist" and "inflammatory" speeches and later booked him in the Jamia protest case and the Delhi riots conspiracy case under UAPA.
Authorities alleged that his speeches contributed to tensions leading up to the February 2020 violence. However, no violence took place during or immediately after his January 16, 2020 speech in Aligarh, which forms a key basis of the conspiracy case against him.
Imam is widely believed to have been among the intellectual architects of the Shaheen Bagh protest, the nearly 100-day peaceful sit-in that became a symbol of resistance against the CAA.
Originally from Jehanabad, Imam is an Indian Institute of Technology Bombay graduate and former software engineer. He later pursued higher studies at JNU, earning a Master's degree in Modern History and Philosophy. He also received the Maulana Azad National Fellowship, cleared the NET examination, and was eligible for an assistant professorship before his arrest.
Eight FIRs were registered against him across different states. Courts have granted him bail in seven cases, including those involving sedition and UAPA, with some orders noting that his speeches did not directly call for violence.
However, he remains jailed in the Delhi violence conspiracy case, where his bail has been denied. Recently, four co-accused, Gulfisha Fatima, Shifa-Ur-Rehman, Mohd Saleem Khan and Meeran Haider, were released after spending more than 2,000 days in jail.
The Supreme Court of India later denied bail to several other accused, including Sharjeel Imam, Umar Khalid, Athar Khan, Khalid Saifi, Tahir Hussain, Salim Malik and Tasleem Ahmed, observing that a prima facie case under UAPA existed.
The decision has drawn criticism from human rights organisations, legal experts, families of the accused and sections of civil society, who argue that prolonged incarceration without trial raises serious concerns about due process and the use of anti-terror laws in protest-related cases.