3 min readNew DelhiMar 2, 2026 07:53 PM IST Calling their protest during the India AI Impact Summit a “symbolic political critique during a public event”, a Delhi court on Sunday granted bail to nine Indian Youth Congress (IYC) workers in connection with their ‘shirtless’ protest. It, however, dismissed the bail plea of another worker. “The protest, at highest, constituted a symbolic political critique during a public event… T-shirts with leadership imagery, non-inciteful slogans bereft of communal/regional taint, and transient assembly. No evidence discloses property defacement or delegate panic…,” said Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) Ravi of Patiala House Court in his order. “The alleged conduct constitutes political dissent, distant from recidivist violence or organised crime…,” JMFC Ravi added. No ‘single offence’ carries death, life sentence sanctions: Court “At the outset, a threshold and dispassionate scrutiny of the array of penal provisions invoked in the FIR inexorably reveals that not a single offence carries the draconian sanction of death, life imprisonment, or incarceration exceeding seven years,” the judge said. JMFC Ravi said, “In the instant …