INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
MEERUT: Nearly 15 months after 3 Kashmiri students of an engineering college in Agra were jailed for presumably celebrating the Pakistan
cricket teams triumph over India in a T20 World Cup cricket match, their case file has reached Saharanpur on the orders of the Allahabad
high court as legal representatives in Agra have refused to fight for them.The implicated, after legal representatives in Agra revealed they
would not represent the Kashmiri youth, some even physically attacking the trainees in court premises, had actually petitioned the Allahabad
HC to move the case to a place outside Agra
On January 11 this year, the HC passed an order, a copy of which is with TOI
that stated: District Bar Association, Agra, has actually made a resolution that they will not protect the case of the applicants
The cuttings of newspapers have been annexed ..
Applicants are implicated of sedition and feeling trouble in the trial at Agra (sic)
Considering their submission and remembering the facts and situations, it would be proper to move today case
It even more stated: Case (crime number 675/2021) under area 153A (promoting enmity on the grounds of religious beliefs, race, and so on),
505 (1 )(b) (blood circulation of rumour or report with malafide objectives), 124A (sedition) and section 66F of Information Technology Act,
is recalled and transferred from court of CJM (chief judicial magistrate), Agra, to court of CJM, Saharanpur, for disposal in accordance
Confirming the development, president of Saharanpur Bar Association, Arvind Kumar, said, To get justice is every citizens right
An FIR was lodged versus the 3 trainees-- Arsheed Yusuf, Inayat Altaf Sheikh and Shaukat Ahmed Ganai (all in their early 20s)-- for
supposedly publishing a WhatsApp status praising the Pakistan gamers, and they were sent to prison in Agra on October 27, 2021
They got bail from the HC 6 months later
A sedition case was also slapped against them.Mathura-based lawyer, Madhuvan Chaturvedi, who eventually took up their matter, told TOI that
the case was already set aside due to a technical flaw
Chaturvedi included: The prosecutions case was set aside by the court as arrangement of CrPC 196 was breached
This area mentions that no court can take cognisance of an offense punishable under 153A or 124A, and so on, other than with the previous
sanction of the state or Centre
And in this specific case no such sanction was taken
The order was offered by the court of extra district and session judge on April 16, 2022
The legal representative further said, In May, there was another advancement
The Supreme Court suspended all criminal trials under sedition in the nation
Hence, the case was technically quashed
For whatever reason, a final closure is yet to take location as the file has not been consigned to the record space
Now with the case reaching Saharanpur court it is expected the file will be consigned soon and sureties (of Rs 2 lakh each) discharged
UP president of J&K Student Union, Manzoor Wani, said, Out of three students only Shaukat Ganai is continuing his studies while the other 2
have abandoned their education, primarily for two factors-- firstly, each of them had to spend Rs 10-12 lakh to get out of this mess and all
of them are from bad families
The other 2 are scared to return to Agra
Our modest submission is that now that the court has set aside the case, if a closure report is filed, all three will have the ability to
get the release of the surety bond of Rs 2 lakh each
We hope that after the case has actually come to Saharanpur, the closure will accelerate as they are yet to get a clean chit
One of the accused students, Shaukat, informed TOI: We had to sell our land and all belongings to eliminate the case
I was a topper in my college and was in the last year of BTech
But the other two were not so fortunate
