Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and their comrades had been chargesheeted for sedition recently, 3 years after JNU reverberated with chants of ‘Bharat tere tukde honge, inshallah inshallah’, ‘Afzal hum sharminda hai, tere qaatil zinda hai’ and other seditious slogans. The 1200 page chargesheet that named Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and others, has now faced a roadblock because the Arvind Kejriwal government is delaying in granting permission to prosecute the ‘tukde tukde gang’.
It was reported on Monday by The Telegraph, that before that chargesheet is taken up by the court today, on 19th January 2018, the Delhi government headed by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had to give his permission to prosecute the accused in the chargesheet, without which, the case would not move ahead.
News has emerged now that the court has refused to accept the 1200 page chargesheet by the Delhi Police stating that they first had to get sanction to prosecute from the Arvind Kejriwal government.
Chargesheet against Kanhaiya Kumar not accepted by court; police told to get Delhi government’s approval pic.twitter.com/GNYeK3zbaP
— NDTV (@ndtv) January 19, 2019
The court has reportedly questioned the Delhi police as to why the chargesheet was filed without proper sanction from the Delhi government and the police told Metropolitan Magistrate Deepak Sherawat they will procure the required sanctions within 10 days. The hearing is set to resume soon.
The hearing on the chargesheet was adjourned to Saturday earlier, because of the absence of the chief metropolitan magistrate Deepak Sehrawat. Only when a court takes cognisance of a chargesheet does a trial begin, and today too, the chargesheet has been rejected because of lack of permission to prosecute from the Kejriwal government.
According to The Telegraph, a senior home department official said: “We had received a request for prosecution sanction in the case in 2016 itself.” The police gave another request for sanction with the full list of defendants on Monday. The official added: “The government of Delhi has no precedent of a sedition case in the recent past. We have to examine the request on its merits, based on the IPC. The sanction has not yet been granted by this department.”
The law states that in sections like sedition, where the crime pertains to crimes against the state, the chargesheet and the trial cannot proceed without the consent of the central or state government.
According to Times of India, there was a lack of clarity whether the LG or the Kejriwal government’s home department was to take a call on the chargesheet. Times of India reported that an official of the Kejriwal government had reportedly said that since the government had not given such sanction in recent times, the law department is being involved to ensure that the charges in the chargesheet are substantiated.
According to the TOI report, the police had applied for a sanction in 2016 as well and this was the second request. The police were likely to approach the LG’s office or even the ministry of home affairs if the sanction is further delayed.
“In this matter, the final call will anyway be taken by the LG after the home department gives or denies sanction. So, the police will get the sanction sooner or later,” said a top official, as reported by TOI.
Since the request for sanction was given in 2016 and then recently on Monday, one wonders what is taking the Arvind Kejriwal led Delhi government to give permission for prosecution and whether the police is set to approach the LG of Delhi or even the central government is the Delhi government delays further.
