Key points:
- Arrested February 13 by Delhi Police in connection with a Toolkit on the farmer protests that was tweeted by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, disha Ravi was released from custody late Tuesday.
- The Delhi Court further slammed the police for scanty, sketchy evidence.
Delhi’s Patiala House Court on Tuesday granted bail to 22-year-old climate activist Disha Ravi, noting that the Delhi police had not produced any evidence to suggest that she subscribed to any ‘secessionist’ idea. Pronouncing the order, Judge Dharmender Rana observed that the crime of sedition is not made out by sharing a toolkit and that just being an editor of an ‘innocuous’ toolkit is not an offence.
The judgment rubbished the Delhi police’s attempt to link Disha Ravi to the violence in Delhi on January 26, and said that disagreeing with state policies does not mean citizens should be put behind bars. The judge also said that the police had failed to point out how Disha had provided a global audience to ‘secessionist elements’ — adding also that freedom of speech included the right to seek a global audience for an issue.
No call for violence
The judge pointed out that the prosecution had not placed any evidence linking the toolkit to the violence in Delhi. The judge has included the part of the toolkit that called for action including protesting outside Indian embassies and tweet storm in the judgment copy and found that “any call for any kind of violence is conspicuously absent”.
“The offence of sedition cannot be invoked to minister to the wounded vanity of the governments,” the judge said adding, “Except for a bare assertion, no evidence has been brought to my notice to support the contention that any violence took place at any of the Indian Embassies pursuant to the sinister designs of the applicant/accused and her co conspirators.”
The judge stated that the ‘toolkit’ did not reveal any call for violence. “The perusal of the said ‘Toolkit’ reveals that any call for any kind of violence is conspicuously absent,” the order stated.
The judge said that the strength of the material collected so far is not enough to keep her in custody. “The investigating agency made a conscious choice to arrest the applicant/accused upon the strength of material so far collected and now they cannot be permitted to further restrict the liberty of a citizen on the basis of propitious anticipations,” it added.
Disha was arrested from her home in Bengaluru on February 13 and has spent nine days in police custody — a total of six days in police custody and three days in judicial custody. She was arrested in connection with the Delhi police’s probe into the ‘toolkit’ on farmers’ protests. A ‘toolkit’ is a Google document or Word document often used to organise a social media campaign or to plan protests. A toolkit contains basic information on any issue, tweet suggestions and information on what hashtags to use, whom to tag on social media, etc. These documents are regularly used by various individuals and groups, including political parties, to organise social media campaigns and mobilise crowds.
Disha was released on bail on the conditions that she should cooperate with the ongoing investigations and shall join the investigation as and when summoned and that she shall not leave the country without the permission of the court.
