Will Delhi Police Actually Act Against Riot Accused Delhi Law Minister

By Dr. Gyan Pathak

Hope and frustration run high. Despite a court order to Delhi police to register an FIR and direction for further investigation to be conducted against BJP leader and Delhi law minister Kapil Mishra and others over his alleged involvement in the 2020 Delhi riots, Mohammad Ilyas of Yamuna Vihar, who struggled for five long years to get this order passed by the court after refusal of action against him by Delhi police, does not think that Delhi Police will actually act on the order. This explains the situation on the ground level persisting not only in Delhi, but also across the country, in communally surcharged socio-political context, which is not good for healthy secular democracy.

Mohammed Ilyas says, “Police will try to delay this.” He says this because his lawyer Mehmood Pracha has told him that the Delhi police may try to get a stay on the order from a higher court. “If they wanted to reign in the actual rioter, they my FIR would have been registered in 2020 itself.”

The order was passed on April 1, 2025 by the court of additional chief judicial magistrate Vaibhav Chaurasia of the Rouse Avenue Courts, who noted that a cognizable offence was found against Kapil Mishra. The special MP/MLA court was hearing an application filed in August 2024 by Mohammad Ilyas, seeing an FIR against Mishra, as well as the then SHO of Dayalpur police station and five others, including BJP’s MLA from Mustafabad Mohan Sigh Bisht and former BJP MLAs Jagdish Pradhan and Satpal Sansad.

Kapil Mishra is Minister of Law and Justice in the BJP led Delhi government and also holding charges of the Departments of labour and tourism.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday, April 2, hit out at the Chief Minister of Delhi Rekha Gupta and questioned how Kapil Mishra remains a minister despite a court ordering an FIR against him in connection with the 2020 communal riots in north-east Delhi?

Leader of opposition in Delhi Legislative Assembly, former Chief Minister and AAP leader Atishi said, “The country saw how Kapil Mishra incited the riots in which 53 people lost their lives. Today, all those who have been booked in connection with the riots are in jail. Then, why’s Delhi Police not arresting him? Why is the CM not removing him from the Cabinet?”

AAP MLAs have marched towards the well of the Delhi Assembly and raised slogans against the BJP government and the Minister accused of rioting. Then, the Speaker of the House Vijender Gupta ordered 12 AAP MLAs, including the LoP, to be marshalled out. Later, AAP MLAs assembled near Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in the Assembly premises and vowed to continue their protest until Kapil Mishra resigns from ministership.

The Congress has also raised concern on the issue. “A fair probe is impossible,” says Delhi Congress chief Devender Yadav, “if Kapil Mishra remains in the Cabinet.”

The CPI(M) has also issued a statement urging Delhi police to “shed their complicity” in the case, and probe impartially the role played by the Minister Kapil Mishra and “other leaders of the BJP and the RSS” in the Delhi riots of 2020.

After delivering his 33-page order, ACJM Chaurasia scheduled April 16 as the date of compliance of the order from DCP North-East. A special feature of the order is that the court also directed that the then DCP Ved Prakash Surya be examined, against whom the complainant alleged that he was wandering in the streets saying, “if you did not stop this protest, then consequence will happen here that you will be killed”.

“His (Surya’s) personal interrogation is necessary,” the court said, adding that “The series of events reveals that perhaps, if allegations of the complainant are found to be true, then DCP Ved Prakash Surya knows something which this judiciary does not.” However, if the information was found to be false, then Delhi Police would be at liberty to proceed against the complainant under Section 182 of IPC, the court added.

Taking note of the presence acknowledged by Kapil Mishra himself, the court also observed that Mishra did not frame his statement under “Pro-CAA or Anti CAA but rather Dusri Taraf Muslim” with the distinction of ‘us and them’, wherein ‘them’ is “Dusri Taraf Muslim”.

“This clearly establishes sides and requires investigation to unearth the truth. The complainant’s complaint also finds credibility wherein he is referring to associates of proposed accused no. 2 (Kapil Mishra), while as would appear on ground, while reading the interrogation it turns out to be 50 to 60 people (more than five persons and known to proposed accused no. 2 as per his admission in interrogation). This clearly qualifies for cognizable offence and is a matter of investigation,” the judge said.

The court further noted if one went through in detail the theories propounded by the prosecution regarding the cause of riots, one would fail to find what was the “immediate cause” for the same.”Whereas the immediate cause for riots is missing, the prosecution was enthusiastic enough to propound a theory to provide a spectacle, the benchmark with which the messages were to be interpreted. It is not denied by the prosecution that the protests were peaceful and escalated only on Feb 24, 2020.

The court, pointing out that Mishra told the police official that he should open the roads, otherwise he would sit in protest, said it had no hesitation to hold that what Mishra made was not a request or assertion, but an “ultimatum”.

The complainant Mohammad Ilyas now says, after the rioting stopped, he tried to get an FIR registered against Mishra and others but the Delhi police turned him away three times.

Finally, in November 2020, Ilyas moved a magistrate’s court to seek that a first information report be registered against Mishra. His application was listed 24 times before 7 different judges of the North East District Court in Karkardooma. Last year the court directed that the application be filed before a special MP/MLA court. The special court listed the matter for 15 times more before 2 magistrates. During this period Ilyas has reportedly subjected to numerous threats and harassment, mostly from the police. (IPA Service)