Delhi HC Issues Notice on Tahir Hussain’s Plea Against Life Term in Ankit Sharma Murder
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice on a petition filed by former Aam Aadmi Party councillor Tahir Hussain, who has challenged his conviction and life sentence for the murder of Intelligence Bureau official Ankit Sharma during the 2020 Delhi riots.
A bench comprising Justice Prathiba M Singh and Justice Vikas Mahajan sought the response of the Delhi Police on the appeal and scheduled the matter for hearing on December 2. The high court will also hear appeals filed by two other convicts in the case, Nazim and Kasim, on the same day. Delhi Police was represented before the court by special public prosecutor Rajat Nair and advocate Dhruv Pande.
A trial court had convicted Hussain and four others on July 13 for Sharma’s murder, holding that Hussain, along with an armed mob, had unleashed a “savage” and “relentless” attack. Six other accused individuals were acquitted in the case at that stage.
On July 31, the trial court sentenced Hussain, Nazim, Kasim, and two other convicts to life imprisonment. While characterizing the crime as “horrendous” and “sickening”, the trial judge noted that the prosecution had failed to establish that the convicts were beyond the possibility of reform.
The trial court had also rejected a plea by the Delhi Police seeking the death penalty for the convicts. It observed that although the brutality of the murder placed it within the “rarest of the rare” threshold, the prosecution had not demonstrated that the convicts' continued incarceration would pose a menace to society.
Challenging the verdict through advocate Rajiv Mohan, Hussain argued that the investigation was tainted from the outset and was conducted to implicate him merely to assuage public anger. The appeal alleged that the FIR was ante-dated and ante-timed, stemming from a fabricated complaint.
Hussain’s plea further contended that investigators conducted no meaningful inquiry until March 2020, when he was arrested in connection with another case. The appeal alleged that witnesses were planted, statements of actual eyewitnesses were manipulated, and the real perpetrators were left unpunished, claiming the trial court’s judgment was legally unsustainable and founded upon surmises and conjectures.
