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The Delhi High Court on Monday dismissed a batch of petitions seeking an independent probe into the 2020 North-East Delhi riots, along with FIRs against politicians for alleged hate speeches and action against police personnel accused of misconduct.
A bench of Justice Vivek Chaudhary and Justice Manoj Jain also dismissed petitions on the December 2019 violence at Jamia Millia Islamia, where police were accused of excesses during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act. "For the reasons mentioned in the judgments, both the petitions (batch) are dismissed," the bench said. The detailed judgments are to be uploaded shortly. In the riots cases, Shaikh Mujtaba sought FIRs against BJP leaders Kapil Mishra, Anurag Thakur, Parvesh Verma and Abhay Verma over their speeches. Lawyers Voice sought FIRs over alleged hate speeches by leaders including Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Manish Sisodia, Amanatullah Khan, Akbaruddin Owaisi and Waris Pathan. CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat sought an independent probe into alleged excesses by police, Rapid Action Force personnel and other officials. Ajay Gautam asked for an NIA probe into the alleged funding of anti-CAA protests, besides FIRs against political leaders for inflammatory speeches. The Supreme Court had earlier asked the High Court to decide one of the pleas expeditiously. In the Jamia cases, students alleged that police assaulted them during the protests. One petitioner, Nabila Hasan, then a law student, had also approached the National Human Rights Commission. The petitions sought an independent probe and, in some cases, transfer of the investigation from Delhi Police to an outside agency. Delhi Police opposed the plea, saying it had collected and preserved CCTV footage from cameras inside and outside the university and in the New Friends Colony area. It also argued that transferring the probe would widen the scope of the original proceedings. (ANI)
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