The Delhi government on Friday told the trial court seized with the JNU sedition case here that the Delhi police had charge-sheeted the accused in a “hasty and secretive manner” without taking prior prosecution sanction from the competent authority.

APP’s submission

The Additional Public Prosecutor (APP) in the case made a submission to this effect in the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Deepak Sherawat and said that and it would take more than a month to decide on the probe agency’s request for prosecution sanction against the accused.

The court had this past Wednesday directed the APP to tell it within three days a time frame within which the Delhi government would be able to decide the prosecution sanction request.

Former JNU president and CPI candidate in the Begusarai Lok Sabha constituency in Bihar, Kanhaiya Kumar, and others are being prosecuted for sedition and other charges in the case for allegedly shouting anti-India slogans on the JNU campus in 2016.

Special Cell Deputy Comissioner of Police (DCP) of the Delhi police had last month informed the court that there was no lapse in charge-sheeting the accused persons without prior prosecution sanction.

DCP Pramod Kushwaha appeared before the court and submitted that sanction was an administrative action and a chargesheet could be filed without it.

The court had summoned him to explain why the chargesheet was filed without prior prosecution sanction.

The court has been deferring taking cognisance of the chargesheet against the accused since the probe report was filed without sanction in January this year.

The court had on January 19 refused to take cognisance of the chargesheet against the accused, stating that the police filed it without sanction for prosecution. The police had then promised to get the required sanction within 10 days.

It had also pulled up the Delhi government last month for sitting over the police’s application for sanction in the matter.

Section 196 of the Criminal Procedure Code states that “no court shall take cognisance of any offence punishable under Chapter VI of the Indian Penal Code except with the previous sanction of the Central Government or of the State government”. And Section 124-A [sedition], under which the accused persons have also been charged, is placed under this chapter.