Sloganeering by students at a city college in February this year was not for an “uprising”, a Delhi court said on Thursday while asking a lawyer not to escalate the controversy surrounding a clash between student groups. “Let us not escalate the ‘vivaad’ (controversy). It was not for any uprising,” Metropolitan Magistrate Abhilash Malhotra said after advocate Vivek Garg argued that the police was delaying the probe despite its report confirming the presence of a large number of students who, he alleged, were raising anti-national slogans. The court also said it would have to see whether the incident related to freedom of expression.

The court was hearing Garg’s plea seeking a separate FIR into the alleged anti-national slogan-shouting by members of the All India Students’ Association (AISA) and the Students Federation of India (SFI) at the Ramjas College in Delhi Unversity on February 21 this year.

Commencing his arguments on sedition, the lawyer on Thursday claimed in the court that the offence was made out as hundreds of participants came under the leadership of teachers and shouted slogans “Kashmir maange azaadi, Bastar maange azaadi”.