Kanhaiya Kumar, nine others summoned by Delhi HC on March 15 in JNU sedition case

A Delhi Court on Monday, February 15 summoned Kanhaiya Kumar and nine others for a hearing on March 15. On Monday, the Patiala House courts took cognisance of the charge sheet filed in the 2016 JNU sedition case. All the accused will have to be physically present in the court on that day. After a year, the Delhi Police received prosecution sanction against former JNU Students. The police claimed in its charge sheet that Kumar led a procession and raised 'anti-national slogans' on the JNU campus on February 9, 2016, along with other accused. This event had allegedly been organized to mark the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. 

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While taking cognisance of the charge sheet against accused, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (Patiala House Courts) Dr Pankaj Sharma reportedly said that the sanction to prosecute accused persons has already been filed by the Home Department, GNCT (Delhi government), dated February 27, 2020. After careful perusal of the charge sheet and consideration of the material, all the accused persons are summoned to face trial and they have been summoned through investigation officer for March 15, 2021.

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Apart from Kanhaiya Kumar, Syed Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya, Aquib Hussain, Mujeeb Hussain Gattoo, Muneeb Hussain Gattoo, Umar Gul, Rayees Rasool, Basharat Ali and Khalid Bashir Bhatt are other 9 accused in the case. The charges faced by them under IPC sections 124A (sedition), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 465 (forgery), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record), 143, 149 (being a member of an unlawful assembly), 147 (rioting) and 120B (criminal conspiracy). Earlier several BJP leaders accused AAP of shielding the students by not giving the go-ahead to the prosecution. They were not summoned as the Delhi government had not given prosecution sanction. Now they have got the prosecution sanction and the court took the cognisance of the charge sheet.

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JNU sedition case 

The Delhi police had filed a charge sheet against former JNU Students' Union president Kanhaiya Kumar. Others named in the charge sheet include former JNU students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya. The charge sheet stated that these students led a procession and raised anti-national slogans on the university campus during an event on February 9, 2016, visuals of which have been accessed by Republic TV.  

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