Delhi govt never halted prosecution sanction of anyone: Raghav Chadha on Kanhaiya Kumar's trial approval

Commenting on assent given by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal-led government for trial in the 2016 sedition case involving former JNU Students' Union President Kanhaiya Kumar, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national spokesperson Raghav Chadha on Friday said that the Delhi government has not halted the prosecution sanction of anybody in the last five years.

Commenting on assent given by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal-led government for trial in the 2016 sedition case involving former JNU Students' Union President Kanhaiya Kumar, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national spokesperson Raghav Chadha on Friday said that the Delhi government has not halted the prosecution sanction of anybody in the last five years. The case to prosecute Kanhaiya Kumar and others had been pending for the government's sanction for over a year.

"Law department of Delhi government, after conducting due diligence, has given its opinion to the Delhi government's Home Department and given clearance. Delhi government has not stopped any prosecution sanction of anybody in the last five years," Chadha told ANI. He said it is the not the government but the judiciary that should be deciding on the merit of such matters.

"We fundamentally believe that the government is not the agency or the authority that should be deciding on the merits of these matters. It is the court and the function of the judiciary to ultimately decide on these matters," he said. Chadha's statement came after the Delhi government on Friday gave the go-ahead to prosecute Kumar and two others involved in the JNU sedition case.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Delhi Police wrote a letter to Delhi Home Secretary requesting him to expeditiously give clearance to prosecute Kumar in the case. In the letter, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Special Cell, Pramod Kushwah said, "It is requested to expedite the process to accord prosecution sanction under Section 196 CrPC as required for the offence under Chapter VI of the IPC, that is, Section 124A IPC."

In the chargesheet filed in the court in January this year, the Delhi Police had said that Kanhaiya Kumar and others, including Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, led a procession and raised anti-national slogans at an event in the university campus on February 9, 2016. It said that there were video footages wherein Kanhaiya Kumar is "seen" leading the students who were raising "anti-national slogans" and that he had been identified by the witnesses in the videos. (ANI)

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