AAP MLA Raghav Chadha said the Law Department of the Delhi government has given its view on this matter to the Home Department after due diligence
New Delhi: Former JNSU President Kanhaiya Kumar thanked the Delhi government on Friday for giving permission to the city police to prosecute him and nine others in connection with a four-year-old sedition case.
Kumar tweeted, “Fast-track court and quick action are required in the sedition case so that the country gets to know how the sedition law was misused in this entire case for political benefits.”
“Thank you to Delhi government for giving permission for the sedition case,” Kumar wrote on the microblogging site while requesting the Delhi Police and government officials to take this case seriously and ensure justice.
“The Delhi government granting sanction to sedition case against us doesn’t trouble us at all. We all are innocent, have full faith in the judiciary and have ourselves been demanding the case against us to be tried in the courts.
He said “The ensuing trial will vindicate us and prove that the media trial at the behest of the ruling regime was false, malicious and politically motivated. We have lived under the shadow of these false charges for far too long. Finally, ‘sab doodh ka doodh aur paani ka paani hoga’ (everything will become clear) !”. “And as we will defend ourselves in the court, we will expose the lies of the ruling regime and its fake claims of being nationalist,”.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on February 19 had said he would ask the department concerned to take “expeditious decision” on the granting sanction to prosecute Kanhaiya and others in the sedition case.
As per the reports On February 22, that during a meeting between Kejriwal and Home Minister Amit Shah on February 19, the Chief Minister was “positive” towards an official request for sanctioning prosecution of Kanhaiya.
Investigating agencies need to take the approval of the state government while filing a charge sheet in sedition cases, as per the rules.
The Delhi Police in 2019 registered the charge sheet at a city court against Kanhaiya Kumar and others, saying he was leading a procession and supported seditious chants at an event in February 2016.
It also charged former JNU students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya with allegedly shouting anti-India slogans during the event to commemorate the hanging of Parliament-attack mastermind Afzal Guru.
The prosecution sanction was granted nearly a year after a city court asked the AAP government to take a decision within a reasonable time frame and noted that the delay was leading to violation of the due process of law.
The Delhi government had then told the court that the police had filed the charge sheet in the 2016 incident in a “secret and hasty manner”, without obtaining the approval of the competent authority.
In September 2019, the court has asked the Delhi government to decide within one month the issue of giving sanction to prosecute Kanhaiya Kumar and others in the case.
AAP MLA Raghav Chadha said the Law Department of the Delhi government has given its view on this matter to the Home Department after due diligence. The sanction was granted by the Delhi government on February 20, he said.
BJP MP Manoj Tiwari welcomed the decision and said the Kejriwal government perhaps gave the approval in view of the “current political situation”.
The BJP has alleged that the AAP government was stonewalling the proceedings in the case by not granting its approval to prosecute Kanhaiya and others.
On Friday Chadha said, “The Delhi government, as a matter of policy and as a matter of principle, does not and has not intervened in any of such cases. AAP government has not stopped prosecution in any case, whatsoever, in the last five years.”
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