Court seeks status report from Delhi govt in JNU sedition case
NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Wednesday directed the Delhi government to file a status report on granting sanction to the city police to prosecute former JNU student union president Kanhaiya Kumar and 10 others in the JNU sedition case.
According to the police, the 10 accused had allegedly shouted anti-india slogans on the evening of February 9, 2016.
The police, in the first information report (FIR), had said that the then students and a few outsiders, who were invited to the campus, had held a rally inside JNU to mark the death anniversary of Parliament-attack mastermind Afzal Guru and Kashmiri separatist Maqbool Bhat.
On January 14, 2019, Delhi police had filed a charge sheet against the students accusing them of sedition and raising antiindia slogans. It had named another 36 students in the charge sheet who were present on the date of the incident. However, no evidence was found against them.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Purshottam Pathak also asked the Delhi police to send a reminder to the Delhi government seeking to grant sanctions to prosecute 10 persons, Kanhaiya and former student Umar Khalid among others.
On Wednesday, the police the court that they have still not got the sanction from the Delhi government and their letter requesting grant of sanction is pending with the government.
Reacting to the order, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said, “The concerned department (home) will take the call and I do not interfere in its affairs. I cannot change their decision but I can urge them to arrive at a decision at the earliest.”
The matter would be now heard on April 3.
During the last hearing before the Delhi assembly elections were held, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government had said that it had not taken any decision on the grant of sanction till then.
It was stated that the file was before Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain, who also handled the home department in its previous term. Jain has retained the home department in the present government as well.
Under the Code of Criminal Procedure, investigating agencies have to take the approval or sanction of the state government while filing charge sheets in sedition cases.
On September 18 last year, the court had asked the Delhi government to decide within one month on the sanction to prosecute Kumar and others, saying the delay has caused wastage of judicial time as the case had been listed and adjourned repeatedly since the filing of the charge sheet.