The Delhi High Court on Friday directed a trial court to defer its proceedings against Delhi Law Minister Kapil Mishra in connection with his alleged inflammatory remarks ahead of the 2020 assembly elections.
The order came from Justice Ravinder Dudeja, after senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani, appearing for Mishra, submitted that the Delhi Police had filed a supplementary chargesheet that included material obtained from social media platform X. However, the files containing information about Mishra’s account were in a coded and incomprehensible format, making it impossible to proceed with the case meaningfully.
Jethmalani argued that the trial court was scheduled to hear arguments on the charge on Friday, but without a readable version of the prosecution’s documents, the proceedings would be premature. He also contended that Mishra’s pending appeal against the city court’s March 7 order—refusing to quash the proceedings and summons against him—would be rendered infructuous if the trial continued.
Taking note of these submissions, the High Court asked the trial court to defer its hearing until after October 13, the date fixed for the next hearing before the High Court. “Since no time is left, it is not possible to hear and dispose of the petition today. The learned trial court is requested to defer the hearing on charge to a date subsequent to the date fixed by this court,” the bench said in its order.
The case stems from an FIR registered on January 24, 2020, accusing Mishra of violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) and provisions of the Representation of the People Act through allegedly inflammatory posts on social media.
On March 7 this year, a trial court had rejected Mishra’s plea to quash the proceedings, observing that his alleged statements appeared to be “a brazen attempt to promote enmity on the grounds of religion.”
Mishra, however, has maintained that his remarks did not target any caste, community, or religion. In his petition, he stated that the references in his tweets were only to Pakistan and Shaheen Bagh and were made to criticise anti-CAA protesters. He argued that the statements neither incited hatred nor promoted enmity but were aimed at condemning elements seeking to disrupt peace during the Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests.
The Delhi Police, opposing Mishra’s plea, countered that the tweets contained no reference to the CAA and were intended to provoke hostility against two religious communities. On March 18, the High Court had earlier declined to stay the trial court’s proceedings, ruling that their continuation would not prejudice the minister.
The matter will now come up before the High Court on October 13.
