The Allahabad High Court on Monday stayed any action against Sambhal Jama Masjid Committee Chairman Zafar Ali. He has filed a plea, seeking to quash the police charge sheet in connection with last year’s violent clashes during a court-ordered survey of the 500-year-old mosque.
A hearing was held on Zafar Ali’s petition. A single bench of Justice Sameer Jain asked the petitioner to file a rejoinder while seeking a reply from the state government.
The High Court has ordered to attach Zafar Ali’s petition to the petition of Sambhal MP Zia ur Rehman. Now both the petitions will be heard together, and the next hearing will be held in the second week of October.
Ali was arrested in March 2025 after his name surfaced in the investigation. He secured bail from the High Court in July. He has challenged the findings of the Special Investigation Team (SIT), which recently submitted a charge sheet running over 4,400 pages across six separate cases linked to the violence. Zafar Ali has filed a petition in the Allahabad High Court seeking cancellation of the charge sheet. On July 24, 2025, the Allahabad High Court approved Ali’s bail plea.
Violence took place during the survey in Sambhal Jama Masjid on November 24, 2024, and an FIR was registered against thousands of people, including MP Zia ur Rehman.
During the investigation of the Sambhal violence case, the police had made Zafar Ali an accused and sent him to jail.