Congress leader P. Chidambaram said he disapproved of the sanction granted to prosecute Kanhaiya Kumar for sedition. (HT Photo)

Congress leader and former Union minister P Chidambaram on Saturday criticised the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi for giving the go-ahead to the police to prosecute former Jawaharlal Nehru University students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar and nine others in a sedition case of 2016.

“Delhi Government is no less ill-informed than the central government in its understanding of sedition law. I strongly disapprove of the sanction granted to prosecute Mr Kanhaiya Kumar and others for alleged offences under sections 124A and 120B of IPC,” Chidambaram tweeted.

In its election manifesto for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress had pledged to scrap the sedition law, arguing that it has been “misused and, in any event, become redundant”.

Earlier on Friday, the BJP claimed that it was public pressure that forced the Delhi government to grant sanction to prosecute Kanhaiya Kumar and nine others in the sedition case.

“Under public pressure, finally the Delhi government was forced to give permission in the JNU case. For three years, Arvind Kejriwal kept postponing it but he was forced to bend in front of people,” Unbion minister Prakash Javadekar said in a tweet.

On January 14, 2019, the Delhi Police had filed a charge sheet against Kanhaiya and others, including former JNU students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya. The police had said the accused led a protest march on February 9, 2016 to commemorate the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru cession and had supported seditious slogans allegedly raised in the JNU campus that day.

Kanhaiya was arrested on February 12, 2016 was released from jail on March 3 that year. Kanhaiya, Umar and Anirban granted regular bail by Delhi court on August 26, 2012.

The former JNU leader who went on to join the Commuit Party fo India (CPI) in 2018 and unsucessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections against Union minister Giriraj Singh, has said the the timing of the permission granted by the Delhi government to prosecute him in the sedition case is suspect. He demanded a speedy trial while responding to the development late Friday night and said the sedition case was “created and delayed for political benefit.”

“It is clear that this matter was created & delayed for political benefit. I want a speedy trial in a fast-track court so that the entire country gets to know how a law like Sedition is being misused,” Kanhaiya’s tweet said.