The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted interim bail to Ashoka University Associate Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad in a case about his comments about the press briefings on Operation Sindoor, Live Law reported.

Mahmudabad was arrested on Sunday and was sent to judicial custody on Tuesday.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to halt the investigation against the professor, who heads the political science department at Ashoka University.

Additionally, he has been barred from posting or publishing any content related to the social media posts under scrutiny, and has been directed not to comment on the Pahalgam terror attack and India’s subsequent military response, Live Law reported.

Mahmudabad was also ordered to surrender his passport, Bar and Bench reported.

The court also instructed the Haryana director general of police to form a special investigation team within 24 hours to look into the meaning of the words used by Mahmudabad.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and NK Singh specified that the team must include three senior Indian Police Service officers who do not belong to Haryana or Delhi, and that one of them must be a woman.

Ashoka University said on Wednesday that it was “relieved and heartened” about Mahmudabad being granted interim bail. “It has provided great comfort to his family and all of us at Ashoka University,” it said.

Two cases have been filed against Mahmudabad for his comments about the media briefings on the Indian military operation against terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir initiated in the wake of the April 22 Pahalgam attack.

One case was filed against the Ashoka University associate professor based on a complaint by Yogesh Jatheri, general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Yuva Morcha unit in Haryana. The second case was filed on the basis of a complaint by Renu Bhatia, the chairperson of the Haryana State Women’s Commission.

Mahmudabad faces charges under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to acts prejudicial to maintaining communal harmony, making assertions likely to cause disharmony, acts endangering national sovereignty and words or gestures intended to insult a woman’s modesty, among others.

Human rights panel takes suo motu cognisance

The National Human Rights Commission on Wednesday said that it had taken suo motu cognisance of the arrest of Mahmudabad.

The commission said that the allegations against Mahmudabad mentioned in a media report “discloses, prima facie, that the human rights and liberty of the said professor have been violated”.

The panel said it has asked the Haryana police chief to submit a report in the matter within a week.

Also read: Why Ashoka University professor’s arrest has no legal basis

What Mahmudabad said

On May 8, in a social media post, Mahmudabad had highlighted the apparent irony of Hindutva commentators praising Colonel Sofiya Qureshi, who had represented the Army during the media briefings about the Indian military operation

“Perhaps they could also equally loudly demand that the victims of mob lynchings, arbitrary bulldozing and others who are victims of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s hate mongering be protected as Indian citizens,” he had said.

Mahmudabad had said that the optics of the press briefings by Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh were important, “but optics must translate to reality on the ground otherwise it’s just hypocrisy”.

The Haryana women’s panel had accused the professor of attempting to “vilify national military actions”. Renu Bhatia said that he ignored the panel’s summons on May 14. She further said that when the commission visited the university on May 15, he did not appear before it.

Mahmudabad, however, said that he only exercised his fundamental right to freedom of speech in order to promote peace and harmony.

The professor maintained that his remarks had been “completely misunderstood” by the commission and that its notice failed to highlight how his posts were “contrary to the right of or laws for women”.

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