Court pulls up Delhi Police on Kanhaiya Kumar charge sheet

A Delhi court on Saturday admonished the city police for not seeking the approval of the Directorate of Prosecution before filing a charge sheet accusing former Jawahalal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar and nine others of sedition for allegedly shouting anti-India slogans in 2016.

“Why did you file (the charge sheet) without approval? You don’t have a legal department?,” chief metropolitan magistrate Deepak Shehrawat asked the police.

The police submitted a 1,200-page charge sheet in the Patiala House court on Monday over a JNU event held on February 9, 2016 to protest against the hanging of the 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

Besides Kumar, the accused include Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, students union leaders who were arrested over the event and are out on bail. Police claimed in the charge sheet that Kumar was leading a procession and supported seditious slogans raised on the varsity campus during the protest.

On Saturday, the court had been expected to take cognizance of the charge sheet. After the hearing, the court, while expressing its displeasure, gave Delhi police 10 days to obtain approval for the charge sheet from the Directorate of Prosection. The court will hear the matter on February 6.

The maximum punishment for sedition is a life term. Under the Code of Criminal Procedure, in cases of sedition, the police have to obtain sanction from the state government before filing a charge sheet without which the court cannot take cognizance of the document. Deputy commissioner of police of the special cell, PramodKushwaha, whose unit filed the charge sheet, declined to comment.

A police officer said on condition of anonymity that an application seeking sanction for the prosecution was sent to the Delhi government about two hours before the charge sheet was filed. “There have been occasions in the past too when we applied for sanction on the day of filing a charge sheet,” said the officer.

The Delhi government said it had not received any file pertaining to the JNU case. “No file seeking any prosecution sanction in any JNU-related case has so far been brought to the notice of any Delhi minister, including home minister Satyendar Jain and chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. Whatever reports are doing the rounds are completely false and baseless,” said a media adviser to Kejriwal.

First Published: Jan 19, 2019 23:18 IST