Punjab YouTuber accused of spying for Pak ISI granted bail by High Court

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has granted bail to Punjab-based YouTuber Jasbir Singh, arrested in June 2025 on charges of spying for Pakistan’s ISI. Justice Vinod S Bhardwaj noted the absence of corroborative evidence, lack of sensitive material in his content, and his clean antecedents.

Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has granted bail to a Punjab-based YouTuber, who was arrested on charges of spying for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence last year.

Justice Vinod S Bhardwaj allowed the bail plea after taking into consideration the “arguable issues that would arise with respect to the commission of offence as alleged, lack of readily available corroborative material at this stage indicating any direct/remote communication, transmission of sensitive information or any overt act indicative of culpable intent”.

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YouTuber Jasbir Singh from Rupnagar was arrested on June 3, 2025, on charges of spying for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Police had then said that Jasbir was found to be associated with a Pakistani intelligence operative and was in contact with a Pakistan High Commission official who was expelled from Delhi on charges of spying last year.

He was booked under the relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Official Secrets Act.

While allowing the bail plea, the court considered the period of his actual custody of 10 months and his clean antecedents.

The court observed that the state counsel was not in a position to dispute that the petitioner operated a YouTube channel under the name ‘Jaan Mahal’, on which a substantial number of travel and vlog-related videos had been uploaded over a period of time.

“The counsel does not dispute that from the retrieval of the petitioner’s mobile data, no chats, messages, or communication have been recovered, at this stage, as would reflect that he was in contact with any Pakistani national,” the court observed

“In addition thereto, it is also not the case of the prosecution that the content uploaded by the petitioner pertains to any classified or restricted material not otherwise available in the public domain.

“The state counsel does not dispute that, prima facie, the videos in question appear to be of locations and subjects that are accessible to the general public and no material has been placed on record to demonstrate that the petitioner had access to, or disseminated any sensitive or confidential information,” the order said.

Police had claimed that Jasbir had visited Pakistan multiple times and was allegedly in contact with the ISI.

It was also alleged that Jasbir, in connivance with certain unknown accomplices and at the behest of agents of the said agency, passed sensitive information to the ISI, including the movements of the Indian Army.

The petitioner’s counsel submitted that Jasbir had been in custody for a period exceeding 10 months since his arrest.

It was argued that the petitioner was a vlogger who regularly uploaded content on his YouTube channel and Instagram page, and the initiation of the present proceedings was out of the content posted on his YouTube channel.