N-E Delhi riots: HC dismisses plea challenging maintainability of petition alleging hate speeches
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Thursday refused to entertain an application challenging the maintainability of a petition which sought investigation against certain political leaders for allegedly delivering hate speeches which led to violence in February 2020 in the backdrop of protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
The court said it was not allowing the intervention application and also refused to keep it pending for future.
"We are telling you our decision, it is dismissed. You are not a necessary or a proper party. We do not propose to allow you to intervene. Don't try to turn it into a circus. We are not keeping it pending. Your client is a gate crasher," a bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Anup Jairam Bhambhani said.
The court was hearing an intervention application filed on behalf of a lawyer in a pending petition filed by Shaikh Mujtaba Farooq, seeking registration of FIR and investigation against BJP leaders Anurag Thakur, Kapil Mishra, Parvesh Verma and Abhay Verma.
Advocate Pavan Narang, representing the lawyer who filed the application, claimed that petitioner Farooq has no locus standi to file the petition as according to a Supreme Court judgement, PILs where the petitioners have not even gone to police should not be entertained, The counsel alleged that it was not a public interest litigation but a publicity infused litigation.
To this, the bench shot back, "Who are you to say this. You are not a concerned party. Whether it is publicity for the petitioner or for you we do not know. We are conscious of the Supreme Court judgement. We are not permitting you to intervene. Don't tell us what to do. We know what is the scope of a PIL." The court further said, "See the irony of the situation here that the intervenor files a plea that the petition is not maintainable. There is no question of even allowing an impleadment to remain pending. If the petitioner has no locus, then the intervenor should be nowhere in the scene, nowhere around." Thereafter, Narang sought to withdraw the application and it was permitted by the bench.
