NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday dismissed a batch of petitions seeking an FIR against various politicians, including Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, BJP leaders Anurag Thakur and Parvesh Verma, and AAP’s Manish Sisodia for alleged hate speech that allegedly led to the north-east Delhi riots of 2020, saying there were elements of “political selectivity”.
A bench of Justices Vivek Chaudhary and Manoj Jain said that there were no exceptional circumstances warranting registration of criminal cases.
“The record before us does indicate an element of political selectivity in the manner in which certain individuals and particular speeches have been targeted for action by respective petitioners. The court, however, does not find it necessary to record any finding on the subjective motive of the petitioners at this stage,” the bench said.
It observed that in several instances, “only portions or excerpts of the purported speeches were placed on record by the petitioners”.
“The completeness and authenticity of the speeches were not established, and the context in which such statements were made is also disputed. We, therefore, cannot proceed on the assumption that the material placed before us represents complete and accurate versions of the speeches or record a definitive finding of fact as to their contents or context,” the bench said.
The bench said that much of the material placed by the petitioners consisted of unauthenticated video recordings, newspaper clippings, and excerpts from the print and electronic media, which were disputed by the Delhi Police.
The bench also observed that the petitions were pending for more than six years, during which the criminal justice process had significantly progressed. “The criminal law has, thus, taken its own course and continues to operate through the ordinary judicial process,” it said.
The bench further refused to take cognisance of a Delhi Minorities Commission, saying “it cannot by itself be treated as a conclusive determination of the culpability of any individual police officer or as establishing that the investigations conducted by the Delhi Police, as a whole, were tainted…"
"We are unable to treat the findings contained in the report, either independently or in conjunction with the other material placed before us, as sufficient to establish such pervasive or institutional infirmity in the investigation as would justify its displacement," it said.