The court had earlier granted time to petitioners to file applications to implead the political leaders and activists, who they accuse of having given hate speeches during the riots, as respondents. (File) The Delhi High Court Thursday declined to entertain an impleadment application that sought to question the maintainability of petitions seeking registration of FIRs against various political leaders for giving alleged hate speeches during the Northeast Delhi riots 2020.
Reprimanding the applicant, the division bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani said he was neither a proper nor a necessary party in the case. The court also said the police were already there to oppose the petitions.
“If the petitioner has no locus, then the intervenor should be nowhere in the scene, nowhere around,” observed the court. “Don’t turn this into a circus,” it told the counsel representing the petitioners. The application was later withdrawn.
The court Thursday also remarked that “cross PILs” have been filed in which FIRs are being sought against BJP leaders Kapil Mishra, Anurag Thakur, Parvesh Verma and Abhay Verma as well as Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Salman Khurshid; activists Harsh Mander, Umar Khalid; advocate Mehmood Pracha, actor Swara Bhaskar, AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi and others
The court had earlier granted time to petitioners to file applications to implead the political leaders and activists, who they accuse of having given hate speeches during the riots, as respondents. Since one of the applications filed in one of the petitions was not on record before the court, it listed the matter for hearing for next Monday.
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