JNU sedition case: Delhi Police claims yet to get government sanction to prosecute; court questions hurry to file charges

Days after a Delhi court said it will proceed in the 2016 Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) sedition case even if the Delhi Police is unable to procure the sanctions needed to prosecute those accused, the court on Monday said it will examine video footage of the event to come to a decision. The court of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate has posted the matter for further hearing on 29 March.

Meanwhile, the Delhi government has yet to give the requisite sanctions to prosecute former JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar and others in the sedition case and has asked for two to three months more to go through the chargesheet the Delhi Police had filed in the case.

Sanctioning prosecution in JNU sedition case: Chief Public Prosecutor informs Delhi's Patiala House court that sanctions can likely take 2-3 months. Investigating Officer didn't appear before court bcos he met with an accident. Court will see video today. Next hearing on March 29

— ANI (@ANI) March 11, 2019

The court also sought an update in the case from the Commissioner of Police, even as it expressed displeasure at the “hurry in filing a chargesheet without sanctions”. The court had earlier directed the police to ask the authorities concerned to expedite the process, while granting it three weeks to procure the sanction .

The Delhi Police has to get the Delhi government’s approval before prosecuting in sedition cases, as mandated under the Code of Criminal Procedure. However, the Aam Aadmi Party government has yet to give the police the go ahead in this case.

On 14 January, the Delhi Police police had filed charges  in the case against Kumar and former JNU students Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya and seven others at the court of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate .

In the chargesheet, it claimed that Kumar had led a procession and supported seditious slogans during an event on the JNU campus on 9 February, 2016, to mark the hanging of Parliament-attack mastermind Afzal Guru.

The students had allegedly held the event even though the JNU administration had cancelled the permission granted for it on a complaint by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, which had called it “anti-national”.