‘Scathing, undemocratic remarks’: Delhi court rejects bail plea of three accused in Jantar Mantar sloganeering case

Link Metropolitan Magistrate Udbhav Kumar Jain rejected the bail pleas of the three accused – Preet Singh, Deepak Singh Hindu and Vinod Sharma on August 12.

The court had on August 11 granted bail to Supreme Court lawyer and former BJP spokesperson Ashwini Upadhayay observing that “investigation in the present matter is at nascent stage that, however, does not imply that liberty of a citizen be curtailed on mere assertions and apprehension”.

The police had alleged that Upadhayay was an organiser and a speaker at the event.

The court has in the present case observed that as far as committing offences under section 153A (promoting enmity between different groups) was concerned “even the FIR is silent with regard to commission of offence”.

However, it said that the video footage fails to find support in favour of the applicants/accused, Deepak Singh and Preet Singh.

In Deepak and Preet’s bail order, the court said it has seen the video clippings and played some part of it in Open Court.

“In one of the clippings, applicant/accused, as identified by the IO in the video clipping, can be seen making scathing remarks which are undemocratic and uncalled for from a citizen of this country where principles like secularism hold the value of basic feature imbibed in the Constitution,” the court said.

The court, while agreeing that “freedom to express oneself is indeed allowed to be enjoyed by the citizens to the fullest possible extent”, it held that “with every right there is a corresponding duty attached.”

“The principle behind Section 153A IPC is to preserve religious/communal harmony and it is the duty of every citizen that while he enjoys his right to express himself, he preserves religious harmony. This indeed is the positive aspect of Secularism,” the court said.

Preet’s lawyers Rudra Vikram Singh and Ashwani Dubey told the court that he was not present at the time of the incident or named in the FIR. Advocate Avadh Kaushik, who appeared for Deepak, argued that he was falsely implicated in the case.

The prosecution had argued that the presence of the accused was confirmed through video footage.

The court also clarified that “at this stage it cannot check the veracity of these video clippings which is a matter of appreciation of evidence to be done at a later stage.” “Besides, there is no time stamp available at this stage on these video clippings for which proper investigation has to be done. This Court cannot interfere with the ongoing investigation,” the court said.