E-Paper
High Court refuses to order AAP govt to grant sanction in JNU sedition case
A bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar disposed of the plea stating that the government should take action as per law. The plea was filed by BJP leader and former MLA Nand Kishore Garg.
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday refused to entertain a plea which had sought directions to the Delhi government to give sanction to prosecute Jawaharlal Nehru University students in the 2016 sedition case.
A bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar disposed of the plea stating that the government should take action as per law. The plea was filed by BJP leader and former MLA Nand Kishore Garg.
Garg’s counsel Shashank Deo Sudhi had linked the Aam Aadmi Party government’s decision not to grant sanction for the last one year to its politics. Sudhi had recalled that there were several guidelines for the disposal of the criminal cases relating to influential persons that required an early decision.
The BJP leader had accused the state government of “obstruction of justice” by withholding sanction.
On January 14, Delhi police had filed a charge sheet in the court against former JNU student union president Kanhaiya Kumar and nine others, charging them of raising anti-India slogans and supporting sloganeering on campus during an event on February 9, 2016.
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. The court had earlier pulled up Delhi Police for filing the charge sheet “without obtaining requisite sanction.” Delhi government officials said the police had sent a copy of the charge sheet to the home department just two hours before they submitted it in court.
On September 18, 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. The matter is listed for hearing on December 11.
