JNU sedition case: Kanhaiya and seven Kashmiris to face trial.

 A Delhi court has taken cognizance of a police chargesheet and summoned JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar and nine others in the 2016 JNU sedition case.

According to a report by Indian Express, seven of those named in the chargesheet are from Kashmir.

The development comes a year after the Delhi Police received prosecution sanction.

In its charge sheet, police claimed Kumar led a procession and supported — along with others named as accused — seditious slogans raised on the JNU campus on 9 February, 2016, during an event to mark the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, Indian Express reported.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (Patiala House Courts) Dr Pankaj Sharma, while taking cognisance of the chargesheet against Kumar, Syed Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya, Aquib Hussain, Mujeeb Hussain Gattoo, Muneeb Hussain Gattoo, Umar Gul, Rayees Rasool, Basharat Ali and Khalid Bashir Bhatt, said, “The sanction to prosecute accused persons has already been filed by the Home Department, GNCT [Delhi government], dated 27 February 2020. After careful perusal of the charge sheet and consideration of the material, all the accused persons are summoned to face trial and they have been summoned through investigation officer for 15 March 2021.”

The accused face charges under IPC sections 124  A (sedition), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 465 (forgery), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record), 143, 149 (being a member of an unlawful assembly), 147 (rioting) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy).