New Delhi: The Delhi government has given a go-ahead to the city police to prosecute former JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar and nine others in connection with a four-year-old sedition case, as the ruling AAP denied the persistent BJP charge of blocking the proceedings in the matter.
AAP MLA and spokesperson Raghav Chadha said the Law Department of the Delhi government has given its opinion on this matter to the Home Department after due diligence.
The sanction was granted by the Delhi government on February 20, he said.
Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari welcomed the development, but said the Kejriwal government perhaps gave the approval in view of the “current political situation”.
The BJP has been alleging the AAP government was stonewalling the proceedings in the case by not granting its approval to prosecute Kanhaiya and others.
However, Chadha said in a statement on Friday, “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. Our government has not stopped prosecution in any case, whatsoever, in the last five years.”
Calling it a “purely a procedural matter”, he said judiciary and judiciary alone should decide on the merits of each case.
“It is not for governments to decide on the merits of such cases,” he added.
He further said that the Delhi government has not stopped prosecution in any case, including those pertaining to its own MLAs and party leaders.
“Our MLAs fought these in the courts, in most cases our MLAs were declared innocent while some cases are still pending in court. Even when it came to elected representatives of the ruling party, that is the Aam Aadmi Party, the government of Delhi did not intervene in the process of law,” the statement said.
“It is only fair for the permanent executive as well as political executive to not intervene in the process of law and let the Judiciary perform its independent function,” it added.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on February 19 had said he will ask the department concerned to take an “expeditious decision” on the granting sanction to prosecute Kanhaiya and others in the sedition case.
On January 14, the police had filed a charge sheet against Kanhaiya and others, including former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya.
The police had said the accused led a procession and had supported the seditious slogans allegedly raised on the JNU campus during an event on February 9, 2016.
Also read: Modi govt’s handling of Chandrashekhar Azad & Kanhaiya Kumar shows who is the bigger threat
This is a two-pronged strategy on AAP’s part – – so I guess. They know that the accusation is so foolish that no harm will come to Kanhaiya Kumar anyways, but the rant will be settled once and for all. Yet, the permission to prosecute may put AAP in the good books of Narendra Modi, at least for some time, to draw some tiny bit of advantage for Delhi.
For once, the judiciary isn’t responsible for the delay. The AAP delayed the entire process by almost 4 years. By the time a case is heard, the witnesses are gone or have been paid off; the investigators have been transferred and the original files have to be discovered and understood. Of course, now it is the turn of judges to delay the case by another 5-10 years. Why can’t we let the cases proceed and be decided?
Sure. Survival next term depends on such act of kindness
Sure. Survival next term depends on such act of kind
One would respectfully disagree with Raghav Chadha. Sanction for prosecution should be granted after judicious application of mind. It would become a ritual / formality if the authority took the view that innocence or guilt would be established in a Court of law. The slogans, however hurtful, do not constitute the crime of sedition. No act of armed insurrection resulted from those speeches, quite different from the very drastic outcome of Kapil Sharma’s speech. Something ebony black in the lentils …