A sessions court here on Wednesday reserved its order for Friday on the >bail applications of Jawaharlal Nehru University students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya , arrested in a sedition case, after the prosecution contended that the two were the main organisers of the controversial February 9 event on the varsity campus.
While the police said the allegations against them were grave, both Mr. Khalid and Mr. Bhattacharya raised the plea of parity with the JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who has been released by the Delhi High Court on an interim bail for six months.
The applicants also said the incident did not attract the criminal provisions of sedition.
Counsel Trideep Pais contended that the two deserved to get the relief like Mr. Kumar.
‘Intention of students was to create hatred’
The public prosecutor, who opposed the bail plea of >JNU students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya at the sessions court here on Wednesday, said the case against JNU students union leader Kanhaiya Kumar was different from that against the applicants. Mr. Kumar was not the organiser of the progra-mme commemorating the hanging of Afzal Guru at the varsity campus on February 9.
The public prosecutor also contended that the intention of the two students, now in judicial custody, was to “create hatred” against the established government, which attracted sedition charges.
Referred to Chief Justice
Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court’s Bench of Justice Pratibha Rani on Wednesday referred a batch of petitions seeking cancellation of the interim bail granted to Mr. Kumar to the Chief Justice for allocating them before another Bench for hearing.
The judge passed the order after counsel for one of the petitioners took exception to the court’s warning that it could impose a cost on them along with the dismissal of petitions.
