New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Tuesday, March 22, took a dim view of what it said was petitioners’ lawyers’ reluctance to complete formalities on notices issued in connection with allegedly inflammatory speeches by politicians before the February 2020 riots in northeast Delhi.
A bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Rajnish Bhatnagar issued fresh notices to Bharatiya Janata Party’s Anurag Thakur and Kapil Mishra, Congress’s Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party leader Manish Sisodia and others.
The court noted that the earlier notices issued by it on February 28 could not be served due to non-payment of process fees by the petitioners.
“On the filing of process fees by the petitioners within two days and taking all other steps, let fresh notices be issued to all the proposed respondents,” the bench said. It is hearing a batch of petitions on the riots in which the politicians are respondents.
One impleadment application was filed by petitioner Shaikh Mujtaba Farooq who has sought FIR for hate speech against BJP leaders Anurag Thakur, Kapil Mishra, Parvesh Verma and Abhay Verma.
In the application filed by lawyers Sneha Mukherjee and Siddharth Seem, Farooq has stated that after the political leaders named in his plea engaged in the hate speech and exhortation to murder peaceful protestors, attacks broke out all across Delhi.
“You want to implead certain individuals but you are yet to file the process fee. That is basic. How are notices going to be issued? This is the matter where the Supreme Court has, on your insistence, asked us to dispose of the matter quickly yet you have not filed a process fee. How are we going to do it?” Justice Mridul said, according to a report by Bar and Bench.
Earlier, while asking the parties to collate the issues, the court had noted that the Supreme Court, in an order of December 17, 2021, requested it to dispose of expeditiously, preferably within three months, the plea seeking registration of FIR against some politicians for their alleged hate speeches which purportedly led to the northeast Delhi riots last year.
The other application is by petitioner, ‘Lawyers Voice’ has sought the registration of hate speech FIRs against the Congress leaders, AAP’s Sisodia, along with AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan, AIMIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi, former AIMIM MLA Warris Pathan, and lawyers, actors and social workers including Mehmood Pracha, Harsh Mander, Mufti Mohammad Ismail, Swara Bhasker, Umar Khalid, and former Bombay high court judge Justice B.G. Kolse Patil among others.
Lawyers Voice, represented by advocates Satya Ranjan Swain and Archana Sharma, has stated in the application that public discourse cannot become a tool to promote speech that is inimical to public order and if an FIR is not registered, the wrongdoers will be encouraged.
When the counsel for NGO Lawyers Voice said that out of the 23 proposed respondents in his petition, he does not know the addresses of nine persons, the bench said it was his problem and he was responsible to find out the addresses.
“One of the persons made party in your application is a retired judge. He is a retired judge and you can’t find his address? We will give you two days’ time to provide their addresses but if you can’t, you will delete them from the memo of parties,” the bench said, according to Bar and Bench.
The court listed the matter for further hearing on April 29.
Apart from seeking action against those who allegedly gave the hate speeches, other petitions have also sought reliefs which include setting up of a special investigation team, FIRs against police officers who were allegedly involved in the violence, and disclosure of persons arrested and detained.
In its response to these prayers, police has earlier said it has already created three SITs under the crime branch and there was no evidence till now that its officers were involved in the violence.
The police, in its affidavit earlier, has said that investigation into the riots have not revealed any evidence till now that political leaders instigated or participated in the violence.
(With PTI inputs)