The Delhi Police told the Delhi High Court it will appeal the acquittal of six accused in the 2020 riots murder of IB officer Ankit Sharma, as the HC issued notice on two convicts’ appeals.
New Delhi: The Delhi Police has informed the Delhi High Court that it is in the process of filing an appeal against the acquittal of six persons in the case concerning the murder of Intelligence Bureau officer Ankit Sharma during the 2020 North-East Delhi riots, even as the Court issued notice on appeals filed by two of the convicts [Nazim v. State (NCT of Delhi) and connected matters].
A Division Bench of Justice Prathiba M. Singh and Justice Vikas Mahajan was hearing appeals brought by two of the convicts, Nazim and Kasim, challenging their conviction and sentence.
The State to challenge the acquittals
Appearing for the Delhi Police, Special Counsel Rajat Nair told the Court that the State intended to challenge not only nothing in the convicts’ appeals but the acquittals as well. He submitted that six of the accused had been acquitted by the trial court, and that the process of filing appeals against those acquittals was underway.
Taking note of the submission, the Court issued notice on the convicts’ appeals. It recorded that the appeals arise from the trial court’s judgment of July 13, by which the appellants were convicted and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for life under various provisions.
In its order, the Court noted that Special Counsel Rajat Nair had informed it that the State was in the process of filing appeals against the acquittal of the six accused by the trial court, directed that the matter be listed for further consideration, and said the pending application would also be taken up.
Background: the trial court verdict
The appeals arise from one of the most closely watched prosecutions to emerge from the communal violence that convulsed North-East Delhi in February 2020, in which 53 people were killed.
By a judgment delivered on July 13, 2026, the Karkardooma Court convicted former Aam Aadmi Party councillor Tahir Hussain and four others — Nazim, Kasim (also rendered Qasim), Anas and Javed — in connection with the killing of Ankit Sharma, a 26-year-old IB officer whose body was recovered from a drain in the Chand Bagh area on February 26, 2020, a day after he went missing as the riots broke out. Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Singh convicted the accused under provisions of the Indian Penal Code including Section 302 (murder), while acquitting Hussain of the charge of criminal conspiracy. Six other accused were acquitted of all charges, the court holding that the evidence against them was insufficient.
The conviction was significant as the first murder conviction to be secured in the cases arising from the riots. On July 31, 2026, the trial court sentenced Hussain and his four co-convicts to life imprisonment, declining the prosecution’s request for the death penalty on the ground that the case did not fall within the “rarest of rare” category.
It is that composite outcome — convictions on one hand and six acquittals on the other — that is now travelling to the High Court on parallel tracks: the convicts challenging their conviction and life sentences, and the State preparing to challenge the acquittals.
The legal posture: an appeal against acquittal
The State’s proposed step is worth understanding on its own terms, because an appeal against an acquittal is not treated by the courts in the same way as an ordinary appeal.
Once a trial court acquits an accused, the presumption of innocence that every accused begins with is reinforced — the Supreme Court has repeatedly described this as a “double presumption” operating in the acquitted person’s favour. An appellate court, therefore, does not interfere with an acquittal merely because a different view of the evidence is possible; it will do so only where the trial court’s view is shown to be perverse, or where it has ignored material evidence or reached a conclusion no reasonable court could have reached. The State’s appeal against the six acquittals will thus have to clear a higher threshold than the convicts’ appeals against their conviction, where the question is simply whether the conviction is sustainable on the evidence.
The High Court has, at this stage, only issued notice — the formal step by which the respondents are called upon to answer the appeals. No view has been expressed on the merits of either the convictions or the acquittals, both of which remain to be examined.
For the Appellants (Nazim and Kasim): (through counsel)
For the Delhi Police: Rajat Nair, Special Counsel
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