Shehla Rashid gets legal relief: Delhi court allows withdrawal of 2019 sedition case

In a major breakthrough, former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student leader Shehla Rashid has been relieved as the Delhi Patiala House Court sanctioned the Delhi Police appeal to withdraw the case of sedition against her. As per report, the court has granted permission for the withdrawal of the 2019 case of sedition, which had been lodged against Rashid for her tweets regarding the Indian Army.

Shehla Rashid had been legally prosecuted for a series of tweets she had made on August 18, 2019. In the tweets, she accused Army officials of torturing four people in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district. She also stated that a microphone was kept beside them so that their screams could be amplified throughout the area, creating terror among the locals. The charges were said to be grounded in testimony given by people who had departed Kashmir after August 5, 2019, when Article 370 was revoked, putting the region under lockdown.

Case filed on legal complaint

The complaint was brought against Rashid in September 2019 by Supreme Court lawyer Alakh Alok Srivastava. She was accused of inspiring enmity between various groups and making speeches against public harmony. The charges were brought under laws dealing with promoting enmity and causing disturbance in public peace.

Army and government response

The Indian Army strongly refuted Rashid’s allegations, dismissing them as baseless and unverified. Additionally, the Delhi Lieutenant Governor’s office had stated that her tweets aimed to create religious divisions in Jammu and Kashmir. In 2023, Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor V.K. Saxena approved the prosecution of Rashid based on a proposal submitted by the Delhi Police and backed by the Home Department.

Home department’s justification

As reported by The Indian Express, the Home Department held that the seriousness of the case, the sensitivity of the area indicated in the tweets, and the false imputations against the Army made the case serious. It also argued that Rashid's statements justified prosecution under Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code (now known as the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita), which pertains to offenses against public order.

With the court's sanction of the police's plea, Shehla Rashid is now cleared of sedition charges, ending the controversial case.