New Delhi: The Delhi High Court will hear on Tuesday the bail petition of JNU Students Union leader Kanhaiya Kumar, who has been arrested on the charge of sedition. The apex court had on Friday transferred Kanhaiya’s bail plea to the Delhi High Court and ordered an expeditious hearing while declining to entertain it directly as it would set a dangerous precedent with people rushing to it without exhausting the remedy of lower courts.
The development came even as the Supreme Court on Monday refused to broaden the scope of its hearing and said it will confine itself to the violent incidents in which journalists, JNU students and teachers were attacked in the Patiala House Courts complex last week.
SC to hear PIL on Patiala House court attack
The Apex Court also rejected an application filed by the Karkardooma Bar Association wanting to be made a party in the matter on the ground that the lawyers were being victimised and termed as goons and criminals. (The bar association was the only body of lawyers in the Capital that not only honoured the lawyers but took out a candle light march in their support.)
The Apex Court, however, rejected its plea. “We are not concerned with the subsequent incidents. Sorry. We are only concerned with the episode that had happened at the (Patiala) courts,” said the Bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and A.M. Sapre said when a lawyer sought to intervene on behalf of the bar association and referred to the cultural programme at JNU campus alleging that anti-national slogans were raised there and the execution of Parliament Attack case convict Afzal Guru was termed as “judicial killing”.
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The Bar Council of India wanted to know if it can proceed with the inquiry against the lawyers allegedly involved in the violence, but the Bench did not comment. “Let all the concerned receive reports. Today we are not saying anything on it,” it said.
The Bench examined various reports filed by the Bar Council of India, the Delhi High Court Registry, Delhi Police and by a 6-member panel of lawyers it had rushed to the Patiala House Courts on February 17 for an on the spot study of the situation.
“There are allegations and counter-allegations.” So, the reports be exchanged and the objections be filed, before the matter is heard on March 10, the bench said.
