Delhi Violence: Govt approves appointment of SG Tushar Mehta and Adv Aman Lekhi as Special Public Prosecutors in case [Read Order]

31 May 2020

The Delhi Government headed by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has approved the appointments of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi’s lawyer husband Aman Lekhi (Additional Solicitor General) as Special Public Prosecutor/Special counsel in the Delhi riots case.

Both Mehta and Aman Lekhi are the legal officers of the Centre’s Narendra Modi government.

The Delhi High Court’s Division Bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rajnish Bhatnagar was informed about the Delhi Government’s approval on Friday,

The Delhi government’s approval of two known central government legal officers in the communal riots case evoked angry reactions from Twitterati, many of who accused Kejriwal of ‘hypocrisy.’

Hindustan Times, which has been receiving front-page ads worth crores of rupees from the Delhi government, reported on Friday that the Kejriwal government had opposed the appointment of Mehta and Lekhi by the LG. But, the Delhi High Court praised the AAP government for arriving at consensus with LG Anil Baijal on the choice of the Modi government lawyers.

The High Court, said:

“We hope and expect that such like issues would be similarly resolved in other cases as well, so that the focus of the Court remains on determination of the merits of the disputes before it, rather than on such like issues.”

Delhi had witnessed a large-scale anti-Muslim pogrom in February this year when more than 50 people were killed. The bloodshed was started soon after several top BJP functionaries made provocative speeches targeting the Muslim community.