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

Justice Prathiba M. Singh and Vikas Mahajan admitted the appeal and listed it for hearing on December 2 along with other connected appeals by co-convicts.

The Court also directed jail authorities to place on record the nominal roll of the convict and called for trial court records in the case.

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Hussain challenged the trial court’s judgment convicting and sentencing him in the case, saying the investigation was aimed at implicating him to satisfy public anger.

The counsel for Delhi Police said the State would argue all the appeals, including Hussain’s, together.

The Bench said, “All connected appeals arising out of the same judgment are coming up on December 2. We have to assess the role of everybody. We will assess everybody’s role separately but will hear them together. It will save judicial time if heard together”.

According to the prosecution, on February 26, 2020, complainant Ravinder Kumar informed the Dayalpur police station officials that his son Ankit Sharma, who was posted in the Intelligence Bureau (IB), was missing since February 25, 2020.

He later learnt from some locals that a person’s body was dumped in the Khajuri Khas nala from the mosque of Chand Bagh pulia after being murdered.

The prosecution alleged that Sharma’s body was recovered from Khajuri Khas nala and there were 51 injuries on his body.

The trial court on July 31 sentenced Hussain and four co-convicts Nazim, Qasim, Javed and Anas to life imprisonment for the IB officer’s murder, saying the case did not fall within the “rarest of rare” category warranting death penalty.

Hussain contended in his appeal that “the investigation against the appellant has been tainted since the very beginning, aimed at implicating him in order to satisfy public anger. The FIR is ante-dated and ante-timed, no material investigation was carried out until March 6, 2020, that is, till the appellant was arrested in another case”.

He further alleged that the witnesses have been planted in the case and statements of genuine eyewitnesses have been manipulated and that the actual perpetrators have not been brought to book.

On July 13, the trial court had convicted all five accused for Sharma’s murder, holding that they were members of a heavily armed unlawful assembly that brutally assaulted and killed the IB officer during the communal violence.

Hussain sought setting aside of trial court’s July 13 conviction order and July 31 sentencing order, contending the trial Court has believed the statements of completely unreliable witnesses and relied upon those who did not witness the incident and completely ignored the tainted investigation, including fabrication of the complaint on which the FIR was based.

Hussain was convicted under IPC sections 302 (murder), 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine a person), 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting armed with a deadly weapon), 153A (promoting enmity) and 188 (disobedience to an order duly promulgated by a public servant), read with Section 149 (unlawful assembly).

The prosecution had vehemently sought death penalty for all the five accused, saying they fell to the “level of being animals” while relentlessly assaulting Sharma.

The trial court did not award death penalty, saying the prosecution failed to establish that they had such a violent disposition or criminal propensity that their continued existence, even in prison, would pose a menace to society.

Communal clashes had broken out in northeast Delhi on February 24, 2020, after violence between citizenship law supporters and protesters spiralled out of control leaving at least 53 people dead and scores injured.