Supreme Court Grants Interim Bail to Ali Khan Mahmudabad, Forms SIT, Restrains Him From Commenting on Pahalgam, Operation Sindoor
New Delhi: The Supreme Court today (May 21) granted Ashoka University professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad interim bail subject to stringent rules. It has also formed a special investigation team to probe his two anti-war social media posts.
The court said that he cannot write or deliver a speech on the issues which are subject matters of this case.
Bar and Bench quoted the court as having said, "He is retrained from making any comments on the crisis recently faced by India which was a terrorist attack on Indian soil or the counter response given by our nation."
Khan was also asked to surrender his passport.
In an extraordinary note, the apex court also said that if the students and professors, ostensibly of Ashoka University, "if they dare to do anything, we will not accept this, if they try to join hands etc, we know how to deal with these people, they are within our jurisdiction."
SIT to probe anti-war post
The Supreme Court bench led by Justice Surya Kant and comprising Justice N.K. Singh said that it was convinced upon reading the posts that "no case of staying the investigation is made out."
It then said that "to understand the complexity and for proper appreciation of the language used in the post," it was going to direct Haryana's director general of police to constitute a special investigation team of three Indian Police Service officers who do not belong to Haryana or Delhi. This SIT shall be headed by an inspector general of police and one of its members will be a women officer, the court said.
The order says that if SIT finds “any other incriminating material” it would be at liberty to “seek modification of the interim order”.
Haryana police on May 18 arrested Ashoka University professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad under charges that point to sedition and for hurting religious sentiments complaint for his comments on India’s Operation Sindoor against Pakistan.
Two FIRs were lodged against Mahmudabad, one on the complaint of a Bharatiya Janata Party office-bearer and the other on the complaint of the Haryana State Commission for Women days after its chairperson had summoned the professor over his social media posts against warmongering following India’s Operation Sindoor against Pakistan. The police confirmed his arrest in a statement posted on X.
Justice Kant
Justice Kant, during the course of the hearing, appeared to stress on "duty".
"You should know what is happening. There is right to free speech etc..where is the duty. As if whole country for last 75 years is only distributing rights and no duty," he said.
He also appeared to want to convince senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who was representing Khan, that "this is called dog whistling."
Justice Kant also appeared to believe that it is "very unfortunate for a society with free speech when choice of words is deliberately made to insult humiliate and to cause discomfort to the other side." Without noting how Khan's word could have done that, he said that he "should not have lack of dictionary words to use" and that "he can use language which does not hurt sentiments of others and use a neutral language."
It is not clear which language Justice Kant found hurtful.
Sibal noted that there was no criminal intent in Khan's words, nor was he trying to generate communal tension. "He was just hurt. His wife is 9 months pregnant but he is in jail," he said, adding that the second FIR by the Haryana State Women's Commission was also surprising.
Lawyer Indira Jaising has pointed out on X how Khan and his wife are expecting their first born while he sits in prison, while the BJP minister who abused Colonel Sofiya Qureshi by calling her the “ sister of a terrorist" gets a no-arrest order from the Supreme Court.
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