An FIR was registered Sunday against Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury and six other people on charges of sedition during the row involving "anti-national" slogans at the Jawaharlal Nehru Univeristy (JNU) campus.
The others who were booked include JNU students' union leader Kanhaiya Kumar and JNU student Umar Khalid, who are already facing sedition charges, Congress leaders Anand Sharma and Ajay Maken, CPI leader D Raja, and JD(U) Spokesperson KC Tyagi, according to the Press Trust of India. The FIR was registered with the Cyberabad police.
A magistrate court ordered for the complaint to be filed based on a petition by advocate S Janardhan Goud, who accused Gandhi and Kejriwal and other leaders of supporting JNU students who had already been facing sedition charges.
"It is a court-referred matter. Following the court's directive, a case under section 124A of the IPC (sedition) has been registered yesterday against nine persons, including Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal, Sitaram Yechury, JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar and others," Saroornagar Police Station Inspector S Lingaiah told PTI.
Gandhi already faces two sedition complaints filed earlier this month by two lawyers in Allahabad and Varanasi who claimed he was "guilty of treason."
Yechury called the FIR a political move, while other leaders vowed to raise the issue in the ongoing Budget Session of Parliament.
"This is a political move by the RSS-BJP. This could not have happened without the government's sanction. The matter will be taken up politically and legally," he said, according to The Indian Express.
