New Delhi: A court on Friday dismissed a plea seeking registration of an FIR against BJP MLA Kapil Mishra in the 2020 northeast Delhi riots, holding that the allegations raised by the complainant were legally untenable in light of earlier judicial findings.Chief judicial magistrate Avinash Panwar rejected the application filed by Yamuna Vihar resident Mohammad Ilyas under Section 175(3) of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), which empowers a magistrate to direct registration of an FIR in cognisable offences.Ilyas alleged that Mishra had participated in the riots. He claimed to have seen Mishra and others blocking a road in Kardampuri and destroying vendors’ carts during the violence. He further alleged the then Delhi Police DCP stood next to Mishra.However, the court held that the submissions were “legally impermissible” in view of findings already laid down by a CBI court in Nov 2025. “The findings are binding on this court and attained finality” as they were not challenged before Delhi High Court, it noted.The court also referred to earlier proceedings in which the magistrate court’s predecessor directed Delhi Police to investigate Mishra’s alleged role. That order, passed by additional chief judicial magistrate Vaibhav Chaurasiya, was set aside by the sessions court, whose observations Judge Panwar relied upon.Chaurasiya had raised concerns over the adequacy of Mishra’s police interrogation, noting contradictions in his statements regarding the delivery of a speech that became central to the controversy surrounding the riots. He also observed that “guesswork” and interpretations went into building the prosecution’s theory that the violence was a pre-planned conspiracy by anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protesters.The order was challenged through two separate revision petitions — one filed by the state and the other by Mishra. Both petitions were disposed of on Nov 11 last year, when the sessions court set aside the directions for further investigation. “To initiate legal action, the application should have clearly disclosed the commission of a cognisable offence,” it had said. The sessions court also ruled that the magistrate court could not order further investigation since Delhi Police had already registered an FIR regarding the alleged larger conspiracy and the Karkardooma court had taken cognisance of it.
