Patiala House District Court, New Delhi: While hearing the bail applications of Anirban Bhattacharya and Umair Khalid under Section 439 CrPC, the Court granted interim bail to both the applicants/accused for a period of 6 months subject to forming a personal bond. In the present case, both the applicants/accused were charged with Section 124 A of Penal Code, 1860 for raising anti-national slogans at the JNU Campus. Investigation revealed that Anirban Bhattacharya and Umair Khalid had applied to hold the event and were the main organizers of the event which ended in raising the anti-national and anti-constitutional slogans. Sh. Trideep Pais, counsel on the behalf of the applicant/accused Anirban Bhattacharya submitted that sloganeering did not lead to any further incident and the allegations against the accused persons fell short of ingredients of Section 124 A Penal Code, 1860. Sh. Jawahar Raja, counsel for the applicant/accused Umar Khalid made similar submissions.
The Court after perusal of the arguments advanced by counsels, relying on Prasanta Kumar Sarkar v. Ashis Chatterjee, (2010) 14 SCC 496 granted bail to the accused persons keeping in view that no previous criminal record of any nature found and also the fact that nothing has been brought on record which could indicate that they are likely to abscond from the jurisdiction of Court. Therefore, the Court granted interim bail to both the applicants/accused for a period of 6 months subject to forming a personal bond in sum of Rs. 25,000 with one surety of the like amount. The Court also directed the accused persons for not leaving Delhi without the permission of the Court during the bail period. [State v. Anirban Bhattacharya, Bail Application No. 1153/16 & 1154/16, decided on 18.03.2016.]
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