Delhi Riots: High Court Allows Impleadment Of Political Leaders In Pleas To Investigate Them For Alleged Hate Speeches

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday allowed the applications seeking impleadment of various political leaders and others, in the pleas seeking registration of FIRs against politicians for alleged hate speeches during 2020 Delhi riots.

A division bench comprising of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Amit Sharma orally said that any of the newly added respondents, who may wish to file a response to the pleas, may do so before the next date of hearing.

The development came in the impleadment applications filed by petitioners Shaikh Mujtaba and Lawyers Voice.

The impleadment application by Shaikh Mujtaba sought to implead four BJP leaders Kapil Mishra, Anurag Thakur, Parvesh Verma and Abhay Verma as respondents no. 5 to 8.

On the other hand, the impleadment application filed by Lawyers Voice sought impleadment of various persons including:

Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Manish Sisodhia, Amanat Uallah Khan, Akbaruddin Owaisi, Mehmood Pracha, Harsh Mander, Swara Bhaskar, Umar Khalid, Maulana Hamood Raza and BG Kolse Patil, amongst others.

The Bench noted that the said the proposed respondents did not oppose the impleadment application except to the extent that the allegations made against them in the said applications were traverse in toto.

At the outset, the counsel appearing for two respondents (respondents no. 6 and 8) sought time to file reply to the petition. Accordingly, the Court ordered thus:

"The counsel appearing for respondents 6 and 8 prays for time to file reply to the petition. Let a reply be filed within one week with an advance copy to the petitioners, who may file rejoinder to the same."

The matter has now been listed on August 2.

The development came after the Court on one of the previous hearings, granted liberty to two of the petitioners namely Lawyers Voice and Shaikh Mujtaba Farooq to implead proper and necessary parties in their pleas with regards to the specific allegations of hate speeches by various political figures. 

Other petitions clubbed

One of the petitions filed by Jamiat Ulama-e-hind seeks an impartial investigation into the cases by a Special Investigation Team, headed by a retired Supreme Court or Delhi High Court judge. It is demanded that members of the Delhi Police shall be excluded from this SIT.

In addition to the SIT, the petition also seeks a separate and 'especially empowered body' to enquire into all aspects of planning, preparation and causing of the riots.

The petition moved by Ajay Gautam has asked for National Investigation Agency to investigate the funding and sponsoring of protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act.

Petitioner had also claimed that these protests are allegedly funded by PFI, which as per him is an anti-national organization, and the same are supported by political parties such as Congress and Aam Aadmi Party.

In addition to these claims, the Petitioner had also asked for FIR to be registered against political leaders such as Waris Pathan, Asaduddin Owaisi and Salman Khurshid, for allegedly making inflammatory and hate speeches.

The petition filed by Brinda Karat seeks independent investigation into the complaints alleging acts, offences and atrocities by members of the police, RAF or state functionaries in relation to the riots. 

In December last year, the Supreme Court had asked the Delhi High Court to decide expeditiously, preferably within three month one of the petitions seeking FIR and investigation against politicians.

Case Title: Ajay Gautam v. GNCTD and other connected pleas