No further proceedings against Anurag Thakur as Delhi HC ends pleas over 2020 riots
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The Delhi High Court has dismissed a batch of petitions seeking probes into the 2020 Northeast Delhi riots, the alleged police excesses against Jamia Millia Islamia students during the 2019 CAA-NRC protests, and alleged hate speeches by BJP leaders Anurag Thakur and Parvesh Verma, which the petitioners claimed had helped fuel the communal violence.
A Bench of Justices Vivek Chaudhary and Manoj Jain dismissed the petitions, which had been pending since 2020 and sought independent investigations into several aspects of the violence, including alleged police excesses, inaction by law-enforcement agencies, hate speeches by political leaders, and the alleged role of rioters and organisations in the unrest.
Filed by former Rajya Sabha member and CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat and the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, a socio-religious organisation, the petitions sought action against the Delhi Police over alleged “inaction and apathy”, while also seeking investigations into political leaders accused of delivering inflammatory speeches.
Another set of petitions, filed by petitioners who reportedly had leanings towards the ruling BJP, including Lawyers’ Voice, a registered society co-founded by now-sitting High Court judge Justice Ajay Digpaul, sought, among other things, an inquiry by the NIA into the alleged funding and sponsorship of the riots, while specifically naming Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in connection with the allegations.
AIMIM leader Shaikh Mujtaba Farooq, meanwhile, sought an investigation independent of the Delhi Police, proposing a Special Investigation Team comprising officers from outside Delhi.
Karat’s petition had originated in a 2020 application before a magistrate, in which she sought action against then BJP Minister Anurag Thakur and then BJP Lok Sabha MP Parvesh Verma over speeches that she alleged had promoted communal enmity. The magistrate dismissed the application in August 2020, and the Delhi High Court upheld that decision in June 2022. An appeal against the High Court’s order remains pending before the Supreme Court.
During the hearing of the present batch, the High Court had suggested last year that the petitioners could seek to be impleaded in the proceedings before the Supreme Court. The Bench had also observed that entertaining the petitions while the matter remained pending before the apex court would run contrary to “judicial discipline”.