A Delhi court on Tuesday set January 19 for consideration of chargesheet against former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar and others in the 2016 JNU sedition case. The chargesheet was filed against Kanhaiya and others by the Delhi Police on Monday, saying he was leading a procession and supported seditious slogans raised on the varsity campus on February 9, 2016, at an event to commemorate the hanging of Parliament-attack mastermind Afzal Guru.
The court pushed the matter for hearing on January 19 as Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Deepak Sherawat was on leave Tuesday.
Police also charged former JNU students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya for allegedly shouting anti-India slogans during the event.
The charges were slapped under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) dealing with sedition, voluntarily causing hurt, forgery, using as genuine a forged document, punishment for unlawful assembly, unlawful assembly with common object, rioting and criminal conspiracy.
Both Kumar and Khalid have questioned the filing of the chargesheet, saying it was "politically motivated" and a "diversionary ploy" by the Narendra Modi-led BJP government.