New Delhi: Delhi's Patiala House Court on Monday (March 15) granted bail to seven accused in the 2016 Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) sedition case.
The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Pankaj Sharma ordered the prosecution to supply the copy of the chargesheet and other documents to all accused in the JNU case.
The court granted bail to Aquib Hussain, Mujeeb Hussain Gattoo, Muneeb Hussain Gattoo, Umar Gul, Rayeea Rassol, Khalid Bashir Bhat and Basharat Ali on personal bond of Rs 25,000.
"We order for supply of charge sheets. Let the charge sheet be supplied to all the accused persons today," said Pankaj Sharma.
Prime accused Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya were already given bail by the court in the matter.
Earlier, last month, the court had studied the detailed charge-sheet filed by the police in the case, in which Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and eight others are the accused.
The case goes back to February 9, 2016, when ‘anti-national’ slogans were allegedly raised during a staged protest, which was called against the death sentence of convict in the 2002 Parliament attack, Afzal Guru.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Pankaj Sharma on Monday took cognisance of the offences, which includes 124A (sedition), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 465 (forgery), 471 (using forged document), 143 (punishment for unlawful assembly), 149 (member of unlawful assembly), 147 (rioting) and 120B (criminal conspiracy).
"After careful perusal of the charge sheet and consideration of the material, all the accused persons mentioned herein above are summoned to face trial for the offence. Accused persons be summoned for 15.03.2021," the judge stated in the order.
The charge sheet filed by the police is about 1,200-page and includes the names of these accused. One of the primary evidences is the SMS sent by Umar Khalid to Kanhaiya Kumar to arrive at Sabarmati Dhaba in JNU campus, which was retrieved by the Regional Forensic Science Laboratory (RFSL). The SMS stated that the university administration has cancelled the permission for protest and had details of the new venue.
Towards the end of the charge sheet the police officials also confirmed the presence of Kashmiri students during the protest and that they were in contact with Umar Khalid all along.
