Sharjeel Imam, student activist, moved a Delhi court seeking two-week interim bail to contest the upcoming Bihar assembly elections. He described himself as a political prisoner while requesting temporary relief to participate in the polls.
Sharjeel Imam, a scholar from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), approached a Delhi court for interim bail lasting two weeks in order to participate in the upcoming Bihar assembly elections.
Imam submitted the interim bail request to Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Sameer Bajpai at Karkardooma Courts, where the Delhi riots conspiracy case is currently being heard.
He is seeking bail from October 15 to October 29.
It is important to note that Imam faces multiple charges related to the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). Although he has been granted bail in other cases, he remains in custody regarding the Delhi riots conspiracy case, for which the Delhi Police has applied the UAPA.
The Delhi High Court denied him regular bail in this case on September 2, and his appeal against that decision is still pending before the Supreme Court.
In his interim bail application, Imam claims that he is a “political prisoner and a student activist.”
The plea states,
“He [Imam] is willing to contest elections from his home state Bihar which is scheduled to take place from in 2 phases from 10.10.2025 to 16.11.2025,”
Additionally, Imam aims to run as an independent candidate for the Bahadurgan seat.
Notably, two speeches delivered by Imam in December 2019 were included in the charge sheet, one in Delhi on December 13 and another in Aligarh on December 16. According to police reports, his remarks allegedly incited violence during protests on December 15, 2019, in Jamia Nagar, Delhi.
In September 2024, the Delhi High Court rejected Imam’s request for an early hearing of his pending bail petition, stating that it would be addressed on the already scheduled date.
Sharjeel Imam is an Indian activist and former research scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) who gained national attention for his speeches during the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests in 2019–2020.
He studied computer engineering at IIT-Bombay before pursuing a master’s and MPhil in history at JNU. As an active participant in protests against the CAA and National Register of Citizens (NRC), he delivered a speech at Aligarh Muslim University in January 2020, where he allegedly called for blocking Assam from the rest of India, leading to sedition charges against him.
Arrested in January 2020, he was charged under sedition, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), and incitement to violence, and has remained in legal custody since then, facing multiple cases across different states, including Delhi and Assam. His legal team has contested these charges, particularly after the Supreme Court put sedition laws on hold in 2022.