Delhi HC asks police to respond to ex-AAP councillor Tahir Hussain’s appeal in IB officer murder case

The Delhi Excessive Court docket on Wednesday (September 2, 2026) sought response of police on a plea by former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain difficult his conviction and life sentence for the homicide of Intelligence Bureau staffer Ankit Sharma through the February 2020 riots.

Justice Prathiba M. Singh and Vikas Mahajan admitted the enchantment and listed it for listening to on December 2 together with different related appeals by co-convicts.

The Court docket additionally directed jail authorities to put on document the nominal roll of the convict and known as for trial court docket information within the case.

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Hussain challenged the trial court docket’s judgment convicting and sentencing him within the case, saying the investigation was aimed toward implicating him to fulfill public anger.

The counsel for Delhi Police stated the State would argue all of the appeals, together with Hussain’s, collectively.

The Bench stated, “All related appeals arising out of the identical judgment are arising on December 2. We’ve got to evaluate the position of all people. We’ll assess all people’s position individually however will hear them collectively. It’s going to save judicial time if heard collectively”.

In accordance with the prosecution, on February 26, 2020, complainant Ravinder Kumar knowledgeable the Dayalpur police station officers that his son Ankit Sharma, who was posted within the Intelligence Bureau (IB), was lacking since February 25, 2020.

He later learnt from some locals that an individual’s physique was dumped within the Khajuri Khas nala from the mosque of Chand Bagh pulia after being murdered.

The prosecution alleged that Sharma’s physique was recovered from Khajuri Khas nala and there have been 51 accidents on his physique.

The trial court docket on July 31 sentenced Hussain and 4 co-convicts Nazim, Qasim, Javed and Anas to life imprisonment for the IB officer’s homicide, saying the case didn’t fall inside the “rarest of uncommon” class warranting loss of life penalty.

Hussain contended in his enchantment that “the investigation towards the appellant has been tainted because the very starting, aimed toward implicating him with a purpose to fulfill public anger. The FIR is ante-dated and ante-timed, no materials investigation was carried out till March 6, 2020, that’s, until the appellant was arrested in one other case”.

He additional alleged that the witnesses have been planted within the case and statements of real eyewitnesses have been manipulated and that the precise perpetrators haven’t been dropped at e-book.

On July 13, the trial court docket had convicted all 5 accused for Sharma’s homicide, holding that they had been members of a closely armed illegal meeting that brutally assaulted and killed the IB officer through the communal violence.

Hussain sought setting apart of trial court docket’s July 13 conviction order and July 31 sentencing order, contending the trial Court docket has believed the statements of utterly unreliable witnesses and relied upon those that didn’t witness the incident and utterly ignored the contaminated investigation, together with fabrication of the grievance on which the FIR was primarily based.

Hussain was convicted beneath IPC sections 302 (homicide), 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to restrict an individual), 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting armed with a lethal weapon), 153A (selling enmity) and 188 (disobedience to an order duly promulgated by a public servant), learn with Part 149 (illegal meeting).

The prosecution had vehemently sought loss of life penalty for all of the 5 accused, saying they fell to the “stage of being animals” whereas relentlessly assaulting Sharma.

The trial court docket didn’t award loss of life penalty, saying the prosecution failed to determine that that they had such a violent disposition or felony propensity that their continued existence, even in jail, would pose a menace to society.

Communal clashes had damaged out in northeast Delhi on February 24, 2020, after violence between citizenship regulation supporters and protesters spiralled uncontrolled leaving no less than 53 individuals useless and scores injured.