JNU sedition case: Delhi court takes cognisance, summons accused on March 15

The court took cognisance of the charge sheet against former Jawaharlal Nehru University students Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya, and seven others

A Delhi court on Monday took cognisance of the charge sheet filed against former Jawaharlal Nehru University students Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya, and seven others for allegedly raising anti-India slogans on the varsity campus in February 2016.

Former JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar is among the accused. (File photo)

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Pankaj Sharma has directed the accused to appear before the court on March 15.

The court took cognisance, noting that sanction has been granted by the Delhi government to prosecute the accused of sedition.

“After careful perusal of the charge sheet and material, all the accused persons are summoned to face trial for the offence. .. Accused persons be summoned through the IO [investigating officer] for March 15,” the judge said.

The court also directed that copies of the order be also sent to all the parties through email/WhatsApp.

The Delhi Police on January 14 filed a 1,200-page charge sheet before the court naming Kumar, Khalid, Bhattacharya, and seven others and charged them with raising anti-India slogans. The accused have denied the allegations and criticised the police for filing a sedition case against them.

Kumar and Khalid have earlier called the police action “politically motivated”.

The accused have been charged under sections 124A (sedition), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record), 143 (being a member of an unlawful assembly), 147 (rioting) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The other seven accused charge-sheeted in the case are Aquib Hussain, Mujeeb Hussain, Muneeb Hussain, Umar Gul, Rayeea Rassol, Bashir Bhat and Basharat.

The city police had filed the sedition case after “anti-India” and “objectionable” slogans were raised during an event organised at the JNU campus on February 9, 2016 against the hanging of Parliament attack mastermind Afzal Guru. After the case was registered at the Vasant Kunj North police station, it was transferred to the special cell. Kumar, Khalid and others were arrested in the case. They were later given conditional bail.

A case was registered on February 11, 2016, under sections 124A and 120B of the IPC against unidentified people at the Vasant Kunj (North) police station following complaints from Bharatiya Janata Party lawmaker Maheish Girri and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.

Kanhaiya contested the last Lok Sabha elections as a left party candidate from Bihar’s Begusarai seat but lost to BJP’s Giriraj Singh. Khalid is presently in Tihar jail on connection with another sedition case filed in connection with last year’s communal riots that ravaged parts of northeast Delhi, claimed 53 people and left over 400 others injured.