Delhi Riots: High Court Adjourns Hearing In Pleas Seeking SIT Investigation, Registration Of FIRs Against Politicians For Alleged Hate Speeches

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday adjourned hearing in a bunch of pleas seeking independent SIT investigation into the North East Delhi Riots of 2020. The pleas also seek registration of FIRs against politicians for alleged hate speeches and action to be taken against errant police officials.

A bench comprising of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Anup J Bhambhani posted the matter for hearing on February 16.

The Court however 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. 

The plea filed by Shaikh Mujtaba seeks registration of FIR and investigation against BJP leaders Kapil Mishra, Anurag Thakur, Parvesh Verma and Abhay Verma who allegedly made hateful comments to incite the Delhi riots. It also seeks registration of FIRs and investigation against errant police personnel. 

The petition filed by Lawyers Voice makes similar allegations against several other politicians. 

During the course of hearing today, Additional Advocate General Aman Lekhi appearing for the Delhi Police sought permission from the Court to file a list indicating the issues which according to him, do not arise for the consideration of the Court. 

To this, Justice Mridul orally remarked thus "You are at liberty. You can place all the relevant material that you wish to on the record. We don't have a difficulty with that but that should be done as soon as possible."

Lekhi also submitted that the hearing may deferred till the affected parties are not present before the Court.

"The issue here is the assumption that the petitioners are in fact victims which is why there is allegation made against police to suggest that they are entitled to compensation all of which are disputed question of fact which will be outside the ambit of a writ petition because as far as entitlement is concerned, it will come from established facts rather than from proceedings to establish the fact," he added. 

Accordingly, the Court adjourned the hearing in order to enable Senior Advocates Colin Gonsalves and Sonia Mathur, appearing for the two petitioners, to file appropriate applications seeking to implead proper and necessary parties. 

The development came after the Court last week told the counsels appearing for the petitioners to identify and collate the prayers in the pleas in order to enable the Court to determine the issues which are to be considered and those which may have been rendered infructuous.

The petitions were transferred by a bench headed by Chief Justice DN Patel vide order dated January 28, 2022.

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