NEW DELHI: An accused in the Delhi riots alleged before the Delhi High Court on Wednesday that an internal inquiry conducted by the police into the leakage of sensitive information to media about the probe “yielded no results” and was “eyewash”, and the investigation into it should be done by an independent department.
Asif Iqbal Tanha, a student of Jamia Millia Islamia, who is charge sheeted in the Delhi riots conspiracy case, told the high court that sensitive information was leaked during the course of the investigation to people who were not supposed to have it.
Arguing before Justice Mukta Gupta, his counsel said it was necessary to “insulate the investigation” from the persons who are to be subjected to the scrutiny. “If an enquiry is not yielding the result, it is only important to go to the next step, which is investigation,” said senior counsel Siddharth Aggarwal, appearing for Tanha, who was arrested in May 2020 and was released from jail in June after the high court granted him bail.
“When enquiry yields no result, where people to be investigated are the same as those conducting it, where probe was within closed doors with no oversight, there is a mandate of entrusting it to an independent
department,” the petitioner said.