The Court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Deepak Sahrawat today i.e., February 6, 2019, adjourned the JNU sedition case to February 28, 2019, granting more time to the police to obtain the mandatory sanction from the concerned authorities to prosecute former JNU Student Union President Kanhaiya Kumar and others in the case.
The Delhi Police on January 14, 2018, submitted its chargesheet against Kanhaiya Kumar, students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya in the Patiala House Courts in a case pertaining to the alleged “Anti-National” sloganeering at the event in 2016 against hanging of parliament attack mastermind Afzal Guru.
The police charged the three accused for offences punishable under Sections 124A, 143, 147, 149, 120B and 323 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.
Delhi Police claimed to have based its finding on the basis of documentary evidence, CCTV footage, and eye-witness accounts of approximately 90 persons.
Apart from the three then JNU students, the police have also mentioned 36 others in the chargesheet, without naming them as an accused due to lack of evidence.
When the matter last came up for hearing, the magistrate had refused to take cognizance of the chargesheet stating that the Delhi police filed it without sanction for prosecution.
According to Section 196 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 “no Court shall take cognizance 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.” Section 124A IPC (sedition) under which the accused persons have also been charge sheeted is placed under this chapter.
