Special Cell DCP on Saturday informed a Delhi court that there was no lapse in chargesheeting Kanhaiya Kumar and others in the JNU sedition case without prosecution sanction.
DCP Pramod Kushwaha appeared before Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Deepak Sherawat and submitted that sanction was an administrative action and a chargesheet could be filed without it.
The court had summoned him on Friday to explain why the chargesheet was filed without prosecution sanction.
The court has been deferring taking cognisance of the chargesheet against the accused since the probe report was filed without sanction in January this year.
The accused have been chargesheeted for allegedly shouting anti-India slogans on the JNU campus in 2016.
Section 196 of the Criminal Procedure Code states that “no court shall take cognisance of any offence punishable under Chapter VI of the Indian Penal Code”. And Section 124-A [sedition], under which the accused persons have also been charged, is placed under this chapter.
During the last hearing on March 12, Mr. Sherawat had asked the Deputy Commission of Police dealing with the case to file a report.
The Magistrate had on January 19 refused to take cognisance of the chargesheet against the accused, stating that the police filed it without sanction for prosecution.
Required sanction
The police had then promised to get the required sanction within 10 days.
He had also pulled up the Delhi government last month for sitting over the police’s application for sanction in the matter.
“After filing of the chargesheet, no department can sit on its hands with the file with regard to the sanction. The department concerned can do well to speed up the matter regarding the sanction,” he had said.
