{"id":2439,"date":"2026-10-05T08:30:44","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T08:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/2026\/10\/05\/delhi-high-court-rejects-petitions-2020-riots-jamia-probe\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T08:30:44","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T08:30:44","slug":"delhi-high-court-rejects-petitions-2020-riots-jamia-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/2026\/10\/05\/delhi-high-court-rejects-petitions-2020-riots-jamia-probe\/","title":{"rendered":"Delhi High Court Rejects Petitions on 2020 Riots and Jamia Police Probe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!-- Quick Adsense WordPress Plugin: http:\/\/quickadsense.com\/ -->\n<div class=\"9fece8afa224fd09e54b043d0febfb58\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- NR ATF -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-8898941184964366\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"4839033563\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>The Division Bench of the Delhi High Court, comprising Justices Vivek Chaudhary and Manoj Jain, delivered a combined order on Monday that rejected a series of petitions filed over the past year. The petitions sought the registration of first\u2011information reports (FIRs) against several political figures for speeches alleged to have incited the North\u2011East Delhi riots of 2020, and also called for a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into police actions at Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) during a 2019 march against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).<\/p>\n<h2>Background to the petitions<\/h2>\n<p>The North\u2011East Delhi riots, which erupted in February 2020, resulted in the loss of more than 50 lives. The violence was linked by petitioners to speeches delivered during protests against the CAA and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). In a separate incident, students and faculty at Jamia Millia Islamia reported police atrocities during a 2019 demonstration opposing the same legislation. Both episodes have remained the subject of public scrutiny and legal challenges.<\/p>\n<p>Petitioners argued that the speeches made by certain political leaders during the CAA\/NRC protests constituted hate speech that directly fueled the communal unrest in North\u2011East Delhi. They further claimed that the police response at Jamia Millia Islamia amounted to unlawful violence, warranting an independent, court\u2011monitored investigation.<\/p>\n<h2>Petitions filed and parties involved<\/h2>\n<p>Several distinct petitions were lodged before the High Court. One petition, filed by Shaik Mujtaba Farooq, specifically demanded FIRs against senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) figures, naming Anurag\u202fThakur, Kapil\u202fMishra and Parvesh\u202fSahib\u202fSingh\u202fVerma. Another petition, submitted by the civil\u2011society group Lawyers\u2019 Voice, sought prosecution of opposition leaders, including Rahul\u202fGandhi, Sonia\u202fGandhi, Manish\u202fSisodia, Asaduddin\u202fOwaisi, as well as a retired High Court judge.<\/p>\n<p>A separate set of petitions, including one submitted by Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Brinda\u202fKarat and another by Jamiat Ulama\u2011i\u2011Hind, called for a court\u2011monitored SIT inquiry into the role of the Delhi Police during the riots. An additional plea, filed by activist Ajay\u202fGautam, requested that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) investigate the protests on the basis of an alleged \u201cinternational conspiracy\u201d and alleged foreign funding of the activists.<\/p>\n<p>Students of Jamia Millia Islamia also approached the High Court, urging the formation of an SIT to examine alleged police atrocities that occurred inside the university campus during the 2019 march.<\/p>\n<p>Legal representation for the various petitioners was extensive. Senior Advocate Colin\u202fGonsalves, assisted by advocates Kamran\u202fKhwaja, Bhano\u202fPathania, Pooja\u202fMahajan and Urvashi\u202fGirdhar, appeared for Shaik\u202fMujtaba\u202fFarooq. Senior Advocate Kirti\u202fUppal, along with advocates Neeraj, Sanskar\u202fGupta, Tushar\u202fHazrati and Prakhar\u202fNegi, represented Lawyers\u2019 Voice. Advocate\u202fM\u202fTaiyab\u202fKhan appeared for Jamiat\u202fUlama\u2011i\u2011Hind. The State\u2019s position was presented by Additional Solicitor General (ASG)\u202fS\u202fV\u202fRaju, Special Public Prosecutor Rajat\u202fNair and a team of advocates including Dhruv\u202fPande, Shivanshu\u202fTripathi and Akshaja\u202fSingh.<\/p>\n<p>For the Union of India, Central Government Standing Counsel (CGSC) Ripu\u202fDaman\u202fBhardwaj, assisted by advocates Khusagra\u202fKumar and Amit\u202fKumar\u202fRana, and Special Panel Counsel Vedansh\u202fAnand with advocate K\u202fGarg, appeared. CGSC Syed\u202fAbdul\u202fHajeeb, joined by advocate Muhammad\u202fAamir\u202fKhan, also represented the Union. CGSC Amit\u202fTiwari, supported by advocates Ayishi\u202fSrivastava, Arpan\u202fNarwal, Kushagra\u202fMalik and Ujjwal\u202fTyagi, appeared on behalf of the Ministry of Home Affairs. Advocate\u202fKK\u202fMishra, Additional Standing Counsel, represented Jamia\u202fMillia\u202fIslamia, while Advocate\u202fTarannum\u202fCheema represented Rahul\u202fGandhi and Sonia\u202fGandhi.<\/p>\n<h2>Court&#8217;s decision and its implications<\/h2>\n<p>The combined order issued by Justices Chaudhary and Jain dismissed the entire batch of petitions. The judgment, which has not yet been released in full, effectively rejected the request to register FIRs against the named politicians and to set up a Special Investigation Team to probe the alleged police misconduct at Jamia Millia Islamia. The court also declined to entertain the petition seeking a National Investigation Agency probe based on claims of an international conspiracy.<\/p>\n<p>While the order does not provide detailed reasoning, the dismissal means that, for the time being, the legal avenues pursued by the petitioners to hold political leaders and law\u2011enforcement officials criminally accountable remain closed. The decision also signals that the High Court will not, at this stage, direct a court\u2011monitored investigation into the police actions that were alleged to have occurred within the university campus.<\/p>\n<p>Petitioners and their counsel have not indicated any immediate plans to appeal the order, and a detailed copy of the judgment is awaited by observers and media outlets. The dismissal arrives amid ongoing public debate over the accountability of political rhetoric and police conduct during the 2020 Delhi riots and the 2019 Jamia protests.<\/p>\n<p>Legal analysts note that the High Court\u2019s refusal to entertain the petitions does not preclude future litigation on related matters, but it does underscore the judiciary\u2019s current stance on the specific requests presented in these filings. The outcome also leaves open the question of whether alternative legal mechanisms, such as separate criminal investigations by law\u2011enforcement agencies, might be initiated independently of the court\u2019s intervention.<\/p>\n<p>In the broader context, the Delhi High Court\u2019s order adds another chapter to the complex legal and political aftermath of the CAA\u2011related protests and the subsequent communal violence. The petitions reflected a wide spectrum of political actors\u2014from ruling\u2011party members to opposition leaders and civil\u2011society groups\u2014each seeking accountability through the criminal justice system. The court\u2019s dismissal, however, indicates that the judiciary has not found sufficient grounds, at least in the present filings, to mandate the registration of FIRs or the formation of a Special Investigation Team.<\/p>\n<p>As the detailed judgment becomes publicly available, legal scholars, human\u2011rights advocates, and political commentators will likely examine the reasoning behind the bench\u2019s decision. Until then, the status quo remains, with no new criminal proceedings initiated against the individuals named in the petitions, and no independent SIT probe ordered to examine the alleged police conduct at Jamia Millia Islamia.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Delhi High Court dismissed multiple petitions seeking FIRs against politicians and a Special Investigation Team probe into police actions during the 2020 North-East Delhi riots and the 2019 Jamia Millia Islamia incident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[299],"tags":[2027,2677,2675,2674,2676],"class_list":["post-2439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-delhi-high-court","tag-fir-registration","tag-jamia-millia-islamia","tag-north-east-delhi-riots","tag-special-investigation-team","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}