Delhi riots: Delhi Court pulls up prosecution, Delhi Police 'befooling court', lapses in probe in two cases

A Delhi court recently came down heavily on the Delhi police for its investigation in two cases relating to the northeast Delhi riots of 2020.

In a case relating to the burning of house of one Saheen Saifi (State v. Mohd. Farooq etc), the Court pulled up the special public prosecutor (SPP) and an official of Delhi Police for “befooling” the court with regard to the status of a piece of evidence

In another matter (State v. Shah Alam etc), the same court asked the Deputy Commissioner of Delhi Police to make an “assessment” of the “double standard” adopted by the Investigating Officer in probing three out of six clubbed cases.

Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Pulastya Pramachala passed the two orders.

In the first case related to house burning, the court found that the Special Public Prosecutor had befooled the court by stating that a video required for the trial was yet to be received from a forensic laboratory, when it came to light later that such video was not with the laboratory at the time.

“It is unfortunate that till date, ld. Special PP and SI Rajiv, had been befooling this court in the name of pendency of this video and the report before FSL, without actually having any information in respect of the same. The same should not be repeated in future," the court said, in an order passed last Friday.

Earlier, on March 13, the trial in this case was deferred after the SPP told the court that the CCTV footage, used in this case for the identification of the accused by a witness, is pending examination in the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) at Rohini.

The Court then directed the Director of FSL to expedite the process of examination of the video. However, the Director told the Court a month later that “in their record, there was no deposit of any case property in present FIR.”

On July 6, the police told the Court that the video referred to earlier pertained to an incident from February 24, 2020, while the ​​present case pertained to an incident from February 25, 2020. The police, therefore, said that the video earlier referred to was not relevant to the present case and that the police did not want to call for the FSL report earlier on this video.

However, the police status report submitted that day referred to a video submitted in FIR No.60/20.

“If the video is used for the purpose of identification of culprits/accused by any witness in the present case, it still becomes relevant for the prosecution in this case,” the Court had said.

The Court further ordered the  Deputy Commissioner of Police, North-East Delhi, to take appropriate steps.

On Friday, the Court was told the police had asked the FSL to provide a mirror copy or image of the exhibits, which were sent by the Crime Branch to FSL in FIR 60/20.

However, the Court also noted that the letter sent by SHO itself mentioned that an official of FSL had informed that the case property and report in FIR 60/20 had already been collected much earlier, back on December 29, 2020.

“There is another letter dated 25.01.2023, sent by the then ld. Addl. DCP (N/E) to Director FSL to provide a sealed copy of extracted data from the aforesaid exhibits. It is well apparent that on such date, this exhibit/ case property (pertaining to FIR No.60/20) was not available in FSL at all,” judge Pramachala found.

The Court was then told that the Crime Branch had agreed to send back the case property of FIR 60/20 to the FSL to get a mirror copy prepared.

The Court took strong exception to such conduct by the police, given that the trial's progress had been stalled on account of the video stated to be with the FSL earlier.

“The evidence of this case was stopped on account of absence of this relied upon video, and it is also apparent that the mirror copy of that video for this case, is yet to be prepared and obtained. There had not been any concrete action so far, but it is expected that at least now SHO shall make his endevour to get this mirror copy at the earliest possible time and preferably before next date of hearing," the Court said.

Meanwhile, ASJ Pramachala also pulled up the police in another case for preparing a site plan with respect to only three places of the riots, despite six different incidents having been clubbed for investigation due to their proximity of place and time.

The Court said it did not find any justification for any investigating officer to adopt different parameters for these six complaints.

It also took critical note that the prosecution had taken more than six months of time under the pretext of preparing the calendar of evidence.

“The court had asked them to prepare calendar of evidence, so that at least in that process they could realise the evidence placed by them on the record in respect of incidents being prosecuted in this case and simultaneously, could also know absence of any vital evidence. So prima facie, I find that neither investigation was done properly, nor exercise of preparing calendar of evidence was done with open mind, even to be aware of their own omissions,” the Court said.

ASJ Pramachala, therefore, directed the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) to look into the matter.

“I understand that this is not the job of ld. DCP (N/E) to investigate each case, but unfortunately him being supervisory officer, I have to burden him again with the task of getting the things done, which were not done by the IO. It is also worth to mention here that one consolidated site plan was also filed by same IO and even in that so called consolidated site plan all places of incidents were not pointed out by him. Let the department make an assessment of such double standard adopted by IO," the Court ordered.

It added that a site plan showing all the places of incidents being prosecuted in the case must be filed by the next date of hearing, which is September 15.

[Read Orders]