JNU sedition case: Delhi court directs DCP to appear tomorrow

New Delhi: A Delhi court on Friday issued summons to Delhi’s Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) to appear before it on Saturday in connection with the JNU sedition case.

The DCP was supposed to be present in the Patiala House Court today with a detailed report of the case. As he failed to appear, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Deepak Sehrawat directed the top cop to appear before the court on Saturday along with a detailed report on why the Delhi police filed a charge sheet against the accused
without sanction.

The matter is slated to be heard on May 4.

On March 11, Sehrawat had asked the DCP what was the hurry in filing charge sheet without sanctions. During the course of the hearing, Chief Public Prosecutor Vikas Singh had informed the court that granting of sanctions can take two to three months.

On February 28, the Delhi Police had told the court that the file for grant of sanctions is still pending with Delhi government and that they have received no reply.

The court had directed the Delhi Police to urge the Delhi government to expedite the sanction process to prosecute former JNU Student’s Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar and others in the case.

It also rapped the Delhi government, saying it cannot sit on a file for an indefinite time. Under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), the court cannot take cognizance of the police charge sheet without sanction from the home department of the state concerned.

Delhi Police has claimed to have recovered communication between Kanhaiya Kumar and his associate Umar Khalid besides video footage to suggest “evidence” that they were part of a group of students who raised anti-national slogans during a protest event organized on the campus on February 9, 2016.

In the charge sheet filed in court in January, Delhi Police had said there were videos wherein Kumar could be seen “leading the students who were raising anti-national slogans” and that he had been identified by witnesses in the videos.

The location of the mobile phone at the place of occurrence” was also cited as evidence against Kumar in the 1200-page charge sheet.

As part of other evidence, the police said the Forensic Science Laboratory had retrieved an SMS sent by Khalid to Kumar, asking him to “arrive at Sabarmati Dhaba, JNU, as their permission had been canceled by the JNU administration.”

[source_without_link]ANI[/source_without_link]