The Bombay High Court granted bail to the 19 year old Pune engineering student arrested for her social media post critical of the Indian government during Operation Sindoor, India’s targetted military response to the Pahalgam terror attack. The court headed by a vacation bench comprising Justices Gauri Godse and Somasekhar Sundaresan, sternly condemned the Maharashtra government and the police for their ‘radical’ and ‘absolutely shocking’ actions. The Bombay HC accused them of treating the second year IT student from Sinhgad Academy of Engineering like a ‘hardcore criminal’.
The student from Jammu and Kashmir was arrested on 9th May by Kondhwa police under BNS Section 152 for allegedly threatening India’s sovereignty. She had reposted an Instagram story from an account called ‘Reformistan’. She soon deleted the post and apologized while expressing remorse. She was rusticated from her college and taken into jdicial custody at Yerwada Central Jail after a local court denied bail. Her lawyer, Farhana Shah, argued the arrest and rustication violated her fundamental rights under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution. Article 14 guarantees equality before the law while Article 21 ensures the right to life and personal liberty.
The court suspended the college’s ‘arbitrary and unlawful’ rustication order, directed the issuance of a hall ticket for her semester exams of which she has already missed two. The college has complied with the court mandate strictly stating that they will arrange her exams separately under supervision of an invigilator, a male and a female guard following the court’s orders for police protection for her safety at college due to protests against her. For the two exams that she has missed, a decision will be taken by the college board soon.
