JNU Sedition Case: Court Directs Delhi Police to Give Charge-Sheet Copy to Kanhaiya Kumar, Others

A Delhi court on Monday directed the Delhi Police to give copies of the charge sheet to former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) president and CPI leader Kanhaiya Kumar and 9 others in the 2016 JNU sedition case.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Pankaj Sharma put up the matter for April 7 to scrutinise documents in the case and also granted bail to seven accused who were not arrested in the case earlier.

The seven accused include Aquib, Mujeeb, Umar Gul, Rayees Rasool, Basharat Ali and Khalid Basheer, who were not arrested before filing of the charge sheet.

They moved bail applications after which the court granted them bail on a personal bond of Rs 25,000 and a surety of a like amount.

Kumar, Umar Khalid – who is already in custody in the Delhi Riots case – Anirban and seven others were present in court in pursuance to summons issued by the court after taking cognisance of the charge sheet.

Kumar and others, including former JNU students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, were accused of raising “anti-India” slogans.

In its charge sheet the police had reportedly claimed that Kumar and nine others had led a procession where “seditious” slogans were raised and that they had supported it. The supposed incident occurred at the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus on February 9, 2016, during an event to mark the third anniversary of the hanging of Parliament attack convict, Afzal Guru.

On February 15, after five years, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (Patiala House Courts) Pankaj Sharma, while taking cognisance of the chargesheet against Kumar, Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya, Aquib Hussain, Mujeeb Hussain Gattoo, Muneeb Hussain Gattoo, Umar Gul, Rayees Rasool, Basharat Ali and

Khalid Bashir Bhatt, said: “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 chargesheet 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.”

According to media reports from 2016, the police was also supposed to be looking for five ‘masked men’ allegedly shown shouting “seditious” slogans in a video that had surfaced. However, the men have not been traced till date.
Kumar, Khalid and Bhattacharya are all former JNU students, while the other seven accused are Kashmiri students, some of whom were then studying in JNU, Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia.

Kumar, Khalid and Bhattacharya are all former JNU students, while the other seven accused are Kashmiri students, some of whom were then studying in JNU, Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia.

“After careful perusal of the charge-sheet and consideration of the material, all the accused persons mentioned herein above are summoned to face trial for the offence under section 124A/323/465/471/143/147/149/120B of IPC. Accused persons be summoned through investigating officer for March 15. Copy of this order be also sent to all the parties through email/Whatsapp,” the judge had earlier said in an online hearing, according to PTI.

The accused have been charged with offences under sections 124A (sedition), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record), 143 (punishment for being a member of an unlawful assembly), 149 (being a member of an unlawful assembly), 147 (punishment for rioting) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

As many as 36 others, including Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D. Raja’s daughter Aprajita, Shehla Rashid (then vice-JNUSU president), Rama Naga, Ashutosh Kumar and Banojyotsna Lahiri, all former students of JNU, have been named in column 12 of the charge sheet due to insufficient evidence against them.

The maximum punishment for sedition is life imprisonment.

The case had been 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 (BJP) MP Maheish Girri and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.