The Allahabad High Court in its latest order dismissed with costs a PIL for revocation of citizenship of Kanhaiya Kumar, former President of the Student’s Union, JNU, in connection to the 2016 Sedition Case.
A bench comprising of Justices SK Gupta and Shamim Ahmed noted that the plea has been filed with the sole motive of gaining “cheap publicity” without even going through the provisions relating to deprivation of Citizenship.
Earlier in February 2016, a FIR was registered against Kumar and others for the offence of sedition and criminal conspiracy, for raising anti national slogan during an event that took place in JNU campus in February that year. A charge sheet in the matter was filed by the Delhi Police last year.
He had urged the court to direct the Government to cancel Kumar’s citizenship under section 10(2) of the Indian Citizenship Act, 1955.
However in the present case, the court stated that Kanhaiya Kumar was born on the territory of India, as such by virtue of Article 5 (a) of Constitution of India, he is a citizen of India. Thus he cannot be deprived of his citizenship, in as much as he has not become a citizen of India by naturalization or by virtue only of clause (c) of Article 5 of the Constitution of India or by regisrtartion as provided under sub section (1) of Section 10”.
