JNU Sedition Case: Delhi Police Fails To Get Approval From AAP Government Yet Again; Court Orders To Speed Up Matter 

A trial court in Delhi has been told by the national capital’s police that the latter has as of yet failed in its attempt to get sanction from the Delhi government to move forward with prosection against Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar among others in the 2016 sedition case, reports The Indian Express.

The police, however, said that they were expecting the pending sanction to be cleared within a few days. The court has asked the Investigating Officer in the case to tell the government to speed up the process of granting sanction. It observed that the administration cannot sit on filed forever. 28 February has been set as the deadline by the court for the police to get sanction.

Previously on 19 January, the court had taken exception to the police filing a chargesheet in the sedition case without taking approval from the state’s legal department.

“You don’t have approval from legal department, why did you file chargesheet without approval?” the court had questioned.

The Delhi government’s Home Department under which the Directorate of Prosecution is placed has asked for the Legal Department’s advice in what guidelines are to be followed in the case as there does not exist precedence for a similar matter in the recent past.

The chargesheet against the JNU student leaders stems from an event organised in 2016 to commemorate the capital punishment meted out to Parliament attack mastermind Afzal Guru. Slogans were allegedly raised in support of Guru. It is also alleged that chants calling for the break up of India were also heard at the event.