Delhi High Court Quashes Cases Against 70 Indians Accused of Housing Foreign Tablighi Jamaat Participants
The Wire Staff
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New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Thursday (July 17) quashed the chargesheets in 16 cases registered against 70 Indians for allegedly sheltering foreigners who participated in the Tablighi Jamaat congregation during the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020, Bar and Bench reported.
“Chargesheets quashed,” Justice Neena Bansal Krishna said pronouncing the verdict, as quoted in the report. A detailed copy of the judgement is awaited.
A total of 16 FIRs had been filed by the Delhi Police. The accused were booked under provisions of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Epidemic Diseases Act, the Disaster Management Act and the Foreigners Act for allegedly having violated the nationwide lockdown and other prohibitory orders by housing foreign nationals.
Tablighi Jamaat was widely criticised for allegedly playing the role of super spreader in 2020, which led to vilification of the outfit.
The police had also named 195 foreign nationals but most of them were not charge-sheeted and the trial court had also refused to take cognisance on the chargesheet, on the grounds of double jeopardy.
The accused had approached the high court in 2021 seeking to quash the FIRs against them, stating that the prohibitory orders were only for religious congregations and gatherings and not on providing shelter to the attendees.
In January 2022, the Delhi Police opposed the quashing petitions, saying that the accused had not only violated prohibitory orders issued by the Delhi government but also contributed to the spread of coronavirus.
Appearing for the petitioners, advocate Ashima Mandla argued that the attendees who were found inside mosques or in houses were merely being provided shelter, LiveLaw reported. The high court had earlier also quizzed the Delhi Police as to where the attendees could have gone when city suddenly imposed a lockdown.
The Tablighi Jamaat congregation was held in Delhi's Nizamuddin Markaz in early March, 2020, with more than 9,000 members said to have attended the event. Prohibitory orders for gatherings, in view of the Covid-19 outbreak, was declared in the national capital on March 13.
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