Kapil Mishra MCC violation case: Court grants counsel time to answer legal queries

New Delhi [India], April 8 : The Rouse Avenue court on Tuesday heard part arguments on framing of charges in Model code of conduct (MCC) violation case against Delhi law Minister Kapil Mishra.
During the hearing, the court put some legal queries to the senior counsel appearing for Kapil Mishra. The court also asked about the ideology of Congress, AAP and BJP. The senior counsel sought some time to assist the court on the legal queries.
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) listed the matter on May 26 for hearing.
Appeal against the dismissal of his revision has already been moved by Kapil Mishra. The same is pending for hearing on May 19 before the High court.
During the hearing, Senior advocate Pavan Narang along with advocate Neeraj and Himanshu Sethi appeared for Kapil Mishra.
Senior advocate Narang submitted that Mishtra allegedly made a post saying that Congress and AAP are creating "mini Pakistan" in Delhi. It was submitted that accused did not target any community but two political parties.
It was submitted that in January, 2020, MCC came in. The case is based on the report of the returning officer. "I (Kapil Mishra) not targeted any individual based on religion or language. I have only targeted the other two parties," he said.
It was further submitted that People's vote share is very important during this time. People from certain religions are vote banks. They support certain ideologies.
The Judge asked the counsel, " Where do we need to go to find their ideology?"
Senior advocate submitted that the manifestos of the parties are a source. They're in public domain.
The Judge said, "Agenda, ideology and manifesto are very different things."
The senior advocate also submitted that If elections were not there, this (Offence) would have been under 153A IPC.
At the outset, a report on behalf of DCP North West was also submitted before the court. The court took the report on record.
It is stated that a notice was issued to X on March 26, 2025. The social media platform had raised certain objections which were duly addressed. Thereafter, another notice was issued to X on March 31, 2025. The reply on notice is still pending.
It is also submitted that further efforts have been made. The matter has been forwarded to cyber police station for technical assistance and to obtain the required information from X.
On March 20, the court had called a Status report from DCP North West with respect to procuring the information from X related to the tweet allegedly posted by accused.
The court was informed that appeal against Summoning order was dismissed on 7 March by the session court.
"A quashing petition has been filed before high court which is pending for hearing on May 19, 2025. No stay has been granted," Senior advocate Narang submitted.
The matter is at the stage of framing of charge before the trial court
The court had noted the submissions that on July, 22, 2024 a status report was called from the Investigation Officer (IO) with regard to post on social media platform X that was floated by the accused.
The Rouse Avenue court on March 7 dismissed the revision filed by Mishra. He had challenged the Cognizance and Summoning order of trial court.
The trial court had taken Cognizance of the charge sheet in an alleged violation of the model code of conduct in 2020.
It is alleged that Kapil Mishra had made a statement in January 2020 when the model code of conduct in force.
"The word 'Pakistan' is very skilfully weaved by the revisionist in his alleged statements to spew hatred, careless to communal polarisation that may ensue in the election campaign, only to garner votes," the court had said while dismissing the revision.