A Delhi sessions court has set aside a lower court’s order directing police to investigate Minister Kapil Mishra’s alleged role in the 2020 North-East Delhi riots. The ruling brings major relief to the BJP leader.
New Delhi: In a major relief to Delhi Law Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kapil Mishra, a Delhi sessions court on Monday cancelled a lower court’s order that had directed the police to investigate his alleged involvement in the 2020 North-East Delhi riots.
The order was passed by Special Judge (PC Act) Dig Vinay Singh of the Rouse Avenue Courts, who set aside the decision given earlier by Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) Vaibhav Chaurasiya on April 1.
The Magistrate’s order had come on a petition filed by Mohammad Ilyas, a resident of Yamuna Vihar, who had asked the court to order the registration of an FIR against Kapil Mishra.
Ilyas claimed that during the riots, he had personally seen Mishra and some others blocking a road in Kardampuri, North-East Delhi, and destroying vendors’ carts. He also alleged that a Delhi Police DCP was present near Mishra at that time.
In his April 1 order, Magistrate Vaibhav Chaurasiya had made strong observations against the Delhi Police’s investigation into the riots, questioning the credibility of their findings and the narrative built around the alleged conspiracy.
He noted that the investigation contained
“many questionable assumptions, guesswork and interpretations”
and that these factors had shaped the police’s theory that the riots were a pre-planned conspiracy by anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protestors.
The Delhi Police, on the other hand, had maintained that the anti-CAA protests were not organic but only a facade to perpetrate mass-scale violence in the city.
However, the Magistrate observed that this version could not be fully relied upon, saying,
“Once these flaws are outlined, therefore the theory goes off and so does the lens with which prosecution seeks to interpret the facts.”
He further pointed out that some of the police’s explanations — such as the argument that women were put in front of the anti-CAA protests so that the police would practise restraint and mass-scale violence could be executed — could also be viewed differently.
The Magistrate remarked that such interpretations
“can be interpreted otherwise.”
Both Kapil Mishra and the Delhi Police had challenged the Magistrate’s April 1 order before the sessions court. Following this, on April 9, the sessions court had issued a stay order, halting any further investigation into the matter until a final decision was made.
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Now, after hearing the arguments from both sides, the sessions court has completely set aside the Magistrate’s order, giving a significant reprieve to Kapil Mishra.
With this decision, the sessions court has effectively put an end to the call for a new investigation into Mishra’s alleged role in the riots. The judgment comes as a big relief for the BJP leader, who has consistently denied any involvement in the 2020 violence that shook parts of North-East Delhi.
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