The Delhi High Court set aside the disciplinary action taken by JNU against 15 of its students, including former JNU Students Union President Kanhaiya Kumar, in connection with a campus event on February 9 last year. This event was made the ‘reason for sustained actions’ against students, student leaders and event the faculty.
Justice V.K. Rao remanded the issue back to Jawaharlal Nehru University, telling it to decide it afresh after allowing the students to inspect the records and hearing them. Kanhaiya and two others had been arrested on sedition charges after reports that anti-national slogans had been raised at the campus event, organised to protest the hanging of Afzal Guru, a convict in the 2001 Parliament attack case.
The court told JNU’s appellate authority to pass a reasoned order within six weeks of hearing the students, including Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, the two others facing sedition charges.
The students had argued that the university did not give them an opportunity to defend themselves against the charge of indiscipline. The students had also challenged their punishment, which ranges from rustication for a few semesters to withdrawal of hostel facilities.
JNU’s appellate authority had rusticated Umar from JNU till December this year, while Bhattacharya was asked to be out of the varsity for five years.Kanhaiya, Khalid and Bhattacharya were later granted bail in the case. The charge sheet has not yet been filed.
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