Delhi High Court Asks Trial Court To Defer Hearing On Charge In Case Against Kapil Mishra Over 'Communal Tweets'

The Delhi High Court has asked the Trial Court to defer hearing on the point of charge in a case registered against BJP Minister Kapil Mishra in relation to an FIR filed against him in 2020 over his tweets that the AAP and Congress parties had created a “mini Pakistan” at Shaheen Bagh and that the then Assembly polls would be a contest between “India and Pakistan”.Justice Ravinder Dudeja asked the trial court to fix the matter for hearing to any date after October 13. The development came in Mishra's plea challenging an order passed by the special judge earlier this month, dismissing his revision plea against a magisterial order summoning him in the matter. Earlier, Justice Dudeja had refused to stay the trial court proceedings against Mishra. Yesterday, Mishra filed an application praying for taking on record the supplementary chargesheets filed by the Delhi Police, submitting that investigation was complete in all aspect regarding X Corp (formerly Twitter) reply.This was after the trial court asked the Delhi Police to make certain investigation regarding Mishra's tweets. The Delhi Police had then sought information from X regarding Mishra's account. During the hearing, Justice Dudeja was informed by Mishra's counsel that X gave access to the site with single URL for downloading and retrieving the files after which the Delhi Police downloaded the files and placed the same along with the supplementary chargesheet. However, it was submitted that the files were incomprehensible as they were in some coded language and thus, the prosecution before hearing of arguments on charge must provide interpreted documents to Mishra, failing which the trial may get vitiated.It was thus prayed that the matter which was listed before the trial court today for arguments on charge be stayed as the petition would become infructuous if the trial court proceeded to hear arguments. On this, the Court ordered:“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. List on 13.10.2025.”While dismissing Mishra's revision plea, the special judge observed that the word 'Pakistan' was very skillfully weaved by him in his alleged statements to spew hatred, careless to communal polarisation that may ensue in the election campaign, only to garner votes. The FIR was registered against Mishra after a letter was received from the office of Returning Officer alleging that he violated the Model Code of Conduct and Representation of People Act. It was alleged that Mishra made the tweets with the object to promote enmity between classes in connection with Delhi Legislative Assembly Elections, 2020. In June last year, a magisterial court passed the summoning order against Mishra which was upheld by the special judge.The special judge had rejected Mishra's argument that his statement nowhere referred to any caste, community, religion, race and language but had referred to a country which was not prohibited under Section 125 of RP Act.The trial court had added that Mishra's statements were a brazen attempt to promote enmity on the grounds of religion by way of indirectly referring to a 'country' which “unfortunately in common parlance” is often used to denote the members of a particular religion.Title: Kapil Mishra v. Stateclick here to read order

Delhi High Court Asks Trial Court To Defer Hearing On Charge In Case Against Kapil Mishra Over 'Communal Tweets'

Nupur Thapliyal

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