HC notice over Tahir Hussain’s plea challenging life term

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice on former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Tahir Hussain’s petition challenging his conviction and life sentence for the murder of Intelligence Bureau (IB) official Ankit Sharma during the 2020 Delhi riots

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice on former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Tahir Hussain’s petition challenging his conviction and life sentence for the murder of Intelligence Bureau (IB) official Ankit Sharma during the 2020 Delhi riots.

On July 31, the trial court sentenced Hussain, Nazim, Kasim and two others to life imprisonment (Photo for representation)

A bench of justices Prathiba M Singh and Vikas Mahajan sought the Delhi Police’s response and fixed December 2 for the next hearing. The court will also hear appeals filed by two other convicts, Nazim and Kasim, on the same day.

Delhi Police was represented by special public prosecutor (SPP) Rajat Nair and advocate Dhruv Pande.

A trial court on July 13 convicted Hussain and four others for Sharma’s murder, holding that Hussain, along with an armed mob, had carried out a “savage” and “relentless” attack. Six other accused were acquitted.

On July 31, the trial court sentenced Hussain, Nazim, Kasim and two others to life imprisonment. While describing the crime as “horrendous” and “sickening”, the court said the prosecution had failed to establish that the convicts were beyond the possibility of reform.

The court also rejected Delhi Police’s plea seeking the death penalty. It observed that although the brutality of the murder brought it within the “rarest of the rare” category, the prosecution had not established that the convicts’ continued incarceration “would pose a menace to society”.

Challenging both the conviction and sentence, Hussain, through advocate Rajiv Mohan, argued that the investigation had been tainted from the outset and was aimed at implicating him to assuage public anger.

His appeal alleged that the FIR was ante-dated and ante-timed, and was based on a fabricated complaint. It further claimed that no meaningful investigation was conducted until March 2020, when Hussain was arrested in another case. The appeal further alleged that witnesses were “planted”, statements of genuine eyewitnesses were manipulated, and the actual perpetrators were not brought to book.

Hussain also argued that the trial court’s verdict was legally unsustainable and based on “surmises and conjectures”, unsupported by evidence and an incorrect appreciation of the facts.