The Delhi High Court on 17 July quashed 16 first-information reports and all related proceedings against 70 Indian nationals accused of housing foreign participants of the Tablighi Jamaat congregation held in Delhi’s Nizamuddin area in March 2020, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Justice Neena Bansal Krishna said the chargesheets were “quashed” after finding no grounds to continue the trials. Delhi Police had booked the defendants under provisions of the Indian Penal Code, the Epidemic Diseases Act, the Disaster Management Act and the Foreigners Act, alleging they sheltered roughly 190 overseas attendees in violation of lockdown orders intended to curb the spread of the coronavirus. The court’s ruling ends more than five years of litigation arising from one of the earliest and most controversial pandemic-related criminal cases in India; a detailed judgment is expected to follow.