Ever since the incident of riots in Muzaffarnagar in 2013, all accused of involvement in pushing the masses towards violence were brought before the court. The charges applicable on them couldn’t be framed even after six years and dozens of hearings because all the 10 Accused have never appeared together in court. It is a mandate of the law that while framing of charges all accused have to be present in court. The Judge in the matter was on leave at the last hearing held on January 31, 2020. The next hearing is scheduled for February 25, 2020. Defence lawyer Nakli Tyagi said, “Due to the judge being on leave, the court has fixed February 25 as the next date to frame charges.”
The case concerns an incident which transpired in 2013 holding two MPs and as many MLAs liable for giving provocative speeches in a community dominated by Muslims. There was another case which met a similar fate in which 13 accused never showed up together in the court and no charges were framed against them. The accused in this case were Union Minister and MP from Muzaffarnagar Sanjeev Balyan and Minister for Sugarcane in Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Suresh Rana, among others.
On 16th January 2020, it was ordered by the court that all 10 accused should appear before the court on 27th January 2020 but there were several accused who couldn’t make it on the prescribed date.
Prominently, the Allahabad High Court had ordered stirring back the trial of the cases of political personalities, including cases related to Muzaffarnagar riots, to Sessions Court five months ago. This came after; a special court was instituted in Allahabad in November 2018 to reap three dozens of cases upon politicians in Muzaffarnagar for their rapid deployment. Masters of numerous political parties, like UP minister Suresh Rana, BJP MLA Umesh Malik, BJP MLA Kapil Dev Aggarwal, Union minister Sanjeev Balyan, BJP MP Kunwar Bhartendra, former BSP MP Kadir Rana, former BSP MLA Noor Saleem Rana, were charged for using provocative expressions in 2013 which addressing the crowd, which started the 2013 riots, culminating in the loss of 60 livesand displacement of over 50,000 people.
Author: Asif Iqbal
