JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar moves Delhi HC for bail after SC order

New Delhi: JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, arrested in a sedition case, on Friday moved the Delhi High Court seeking bail.

Kanhaiya's lawyers Sushil Bajaj and Vrinda Grover, who were escorted by Delhi Police, directly went to the high court's listing Registrar Loren Bamniyal and mentioned the petition behind closed doors.

The lawyers came to the high court following today's direction of the Supreme Court, which transferred the bail petition to the HC and also asked the Centre and Delhi Police to ensure proper security arrangements for counsel of the students' union leader at the high court premises.

Soon after the apex court order, security in and around the high court was beefed up with the deployment of additional police personnel and CRPF jawans.

The matter is yet to be listed before a bench of the high court for hearing.

Kanhaiya, who is in judicial custody, had yesterday approached the apex court directly, seeking bail on the ground that his life was under threat in Tihar Jail.

His plea was taken up earlier in the day by the Supreme Court which declined to entertain it saying if it does, it will become a precedent available to all the accused in the country.

Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested on February 12 on sedition charge following a controversial event at JNU campus where anti-India slogans were allegedly raised.

The student leader was produced in the court on Wednesday after the end of his police custody, where a group of men dressed in lawyers' robes unleashed a brazen attack on him and others, including journalists present there.

Kanhaiya had sough the apex court's intervention, saying no purpose would be served by keeping him in the jail and the police was finding it difficult to even produce him in the court.

Meanwhile, High Court Bar Association president Rajiv Khosla condemned the violence in the Patiala House court complex and urged lawyers to maintain peace and not do anything which would lead to such untoward incidents.