NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday asked police to submit its status report by Wednesday on the bail plea of JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who was arrested on sedition charges.
Delhi Police, represented by Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, informed Justice Pratibha Rani that they were opposing Kanhaiya’s bail plea. Commissioner B S Bassi, who last week said police would not object to Kanhaiya’s bail plea, justified the change in their stance, saying that circumstances had changed.
“We have reasonable apprehension that if he comes out on bail, he is bound to impact the investigation and influence witnesses. He is also likely to indulge in activities that are violative of penal laws. That is why we have opposed the grant of bail to Kanhaiya and shall oppose it further too,” Bassi said.
Justice Rani asked Delhi Police to file a status report limited to the extent of bail, without which she would not proceed. Kanhaiya was represented by Kapil Sibal, Rebecca John, Vrinda Grover and Sushil Bajaj. In his petition, he claimed he was “falsely implicated” and he had not raised any anti-national slogan. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court agreed to consider a plea seeking contempt action against three lawyers allegedly caught on camera, bragging that they had beaten up Kanhaiya in the police lock-up for three hours at the Patiala House court complex.“This allegation has been never made before us. This is a new allegation which has come up. You file an appropriate petition and we will consider it,” a bench comprising Justice J Chelameswar and Justice A M Sapre said.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan said the three lawyers had boasted that next time they would bring petrol bombs and were ready to go to jail to beat Kanhaiya in his cell.
Mehra can’t appear for aap govt: police
New Delhi: The face-off between police and the AAP government has also affected the JNU sedition case, with police making an appeal to the Lieutenant Governor not to allow the city administration’s senior standing counsel Rahul Mehra to represent the government in the case.