Delhi High Court sets aside JNU order against Kanhaiya Kumar, calls it 'illegal, irrational and irregular'

Delhi High Court on Friday set aside Jawahar Lal Nehru University's (JNU) move to penalise it's former students' union leader Kanhaiya Kumar. The Court termed the decision as 'illegal, irrational and irregular.'

Delhi High Court sets aside JNU order against Kanhaiya Kumar, calls it 'illegal, irrational and irregular' File photo

NEW DELHI: Delhi High Court on Friday set aside Jawahar Lal Nehru University's (JNU) move to penalise it's former students' union leader Kanhaiya Kumar. The Court termed the decision as 'illegal, irrational and irregular.'

As quoted by news agency ANI, the Court said, "JNU's order against Kanhaiya Kumar is illegal, irrational and irregular."

Court asked the University to wait on the matter until a proper decision is taken after the hearing. Delhi High Court on July 18 had directed JNU to not take any action against Kumar in connection with the sedition case registered against him. 

JNU had imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on student-activist Kanhaiya Kumar in connection with the 2016 incident where slogans were allegedly raised at the event relating to Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru's hanging.

The fine on the former JNUSU president was imposed by a high-level JNU panel after a thorough investigation in this regard.

Kumar, who had filed his plea through advocate Tarannum Cheema and Harsh Bora, has sought the quashing of the notification issued by the high-level probe panel set up by the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

The high-level JNU probe panel found student-activist Umar Khalid, Kanhaiya Kumar and Anirban Bhattacharya guilty in the February 2016 incident wherein a group of students allegedly raised anti-national slogans.

The panel then recommended rustication of Khalid and imposition of financial penalty on 13 other students for violation of disciplinary norms on the campus.

Kumar, a member of the Communist Party of India's student's wing, was then president of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union.

The three student-activists were accused - though none has been charge-sheeted by the police as yet - of raising slogans against national integrity during a poetry-reading gathering of students at the Sabarmati Dhaba on the campus on February 9, 2016.

The Delhi Police arrested Kumar on the campus a few days later and slapped sedition charges as Khalid and Bhattacharya along with three other students went into hiding.

This led to a series of protests by JNU students and other universities in support of Kumar and other accused, who claimed that the evidence against them was fabricated and the 1860 sedition law was anachronistic. 

Currently, all three are out on bail.