The court also declined to order an SIT or independent probe into the riots, holding that the petitions did not disclose any exceptional circumstance warranting “extraordinary judicial intervention”.
| Photo Credit: Mrinal Pal
The Delhi High Court on Monday refused to direct the registration of FIRs against several political leaders over alleged hate speeches during the 2020 north-east Delhi riots, observing that the record indicated an element of “political selectivity” in the manner in which certain individuals and speeches had been singled out for action.
The court also declined to order an SIT or independent probe into the riots, holding that the petitions did not disclose any exceptional circumstance warranting “extraordinary judicial intervention”.
No to ‘excesses’ at Jamia
In separate pleas concerning the December 2019 violence at Jamia Millia Islamia, the court refused to order an inquiry into alleged police excesses.
Hearing a batch of petitions filed in 2019 and 2020 over the alleged speeches, a Bench of Justices Vivek Chaudhary and Manoj Jain observed that, in several instances, only excerpts of the purported speeches had been placed on record.
The leaders mentioned in the petitions included Bharatiya Janata Party’s Anurag Thakur, Parvesh Sahib Singh, and Kapil Mishra; Congress’s Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra; and Aam Aadmi Party’s Manish Sisodia and Amanatullah Khan.
Regarding the investigation into the riots, the court noted that allegations against individual police officers could not by themselves establish that the entire investigative machinery of the Delhi police was incapable of conducting a fair investigation.
The Bench noted that 757 criminal cases had been registered in connection with the riots. As of February 19, 2026, investigation had been handed over to the Crime Branch in 65 cases, charge sheets had been filed in 369 cases, proceedings in 212 cases were pending before criminal courts, and 249 cases remained under probe.
Rejecting the plea for a fresh inquiry into the violence at Jamia Millia Islamia, the court said the police did not enter the university premises at the outset to deal with an otherwise peaceful assembly confined to the campus.
Published – October 06, 2026 12:37 am IST
