Supreme Court seeks reply from four states on clubbing FIRs against JNU student Sharjeel Imam

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought responses from Assam, Manipur, Uttar Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh on a plea by JNU student Sharjeel Imam, seeking clubbing of FIRs against him for alleged offenses of sedition and hate speech.

The bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan issued notice to the four states after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Delhi government, told the court that all states where FIRs have been registered should be heard by the court before passing any order. The states were given two weeks to file their responses.

Senior advocate Siddharth Dave, appearing for Imam, said that there are five FIRs registered against him in different states in connection with two speeches given in Delhi and Aligarh.

Imam is currently lodged at a Guwahati jail.Imam, in a speech delivered at Aligarh Muslim University on January 16, had said roads leading to Assam should be “cut off” from the rest of the country as part of the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).