New Delhi, February 21
The
Supreme Court will hear petitions for contempt of court against a
student leader and a former professor at Delhi University— both of who
face sedition charges — and some others for calling Parliament attack
convict Afzal Guru’s execution a “judicial killing” on Monday.
A
Bench of Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justices R Banumathi will hear a
lawyer’s petition seeking contempt proceedings against student leader
Kanhaiya Kumar and professor SAR Gilani. The petition also names Umar
Khalid, Lenin Kumar, Anirban Bhattacharya, Shehla Rashid Shora and Ali
Javed.
Petitioner
Vineet Dhanda says in his plea: “The so-called cultural event's
pamphlets spoke about the judicial killing of Afzal Guru. The main topic
of the 'cultural event' organised was judicial killing of Afzal Guru
which outright tantamount to criminal contempt as the respondents are
calling the judges of the apex court as killers who have been projected
to have committed judicial killing of Afzal Guru".
"Afzal
and Yakub Memon were no martyrs as projected by the group of students
of JNU. The Supreme Court has already passed a detailed judgement in
both cases after giving due consideration as per law after going through
the evidence.”
“Pamphlets
were allegedly distributed during the "so- called" cultural event held
at JNU on February 9 that termed death sentence to Guru and Maqbool
Bhatt as ‘judicial killing’,” the plea said.
The
Supreme Court upheld Guru’s death penalty on August 4, 2005, for having
been part of a conspiracy to attack Parliament in 2001. He was hanged
on February 9, 2013.
Kanhaiya
Kumar — president of a left-wing student union at the Jawaharlal Nehru
University (JNU), has been charged with sedition for having been
suspected of raising some anti-India slogans at an event organised to
protest Guru’s hanging on his third death anniversary on February 9.
Gilani, who was also accused
of having been involved in the Parliament attack but acquitted later,
has been suspected of having raised anti-India slogans at an event
organised to protest the 2013 hanging at a press club on the same day. —
PTI
