Call records of STF officers must not be exposed unless extremely necessary to case: Delhi High Court

Call data records (CDRs) of the officers of the Special Task Force (STF) should not be made public unless it is extremely necessary for the purpose of the case, the Delhi High Court recently said (Dinesh Kumar @ Dina vs. State, NCT of Delhi).Single-judge Justice Subramonium Prasad observed that exposing CDRs could endanger the safety of the STF officers and their informers."Needless to state that unless it is extremely necessary for the facts of that case the CDRs of the officers of Special Task Force must not be exposed as it would endanger the officers concerned and their informers," the order passed on November 29 said. The Court was hearing a plea filed one Dinesh Kumar, seeking CDRs, location chart and timeline of five police personnel - SI Mukesh Tyagi, Constable Ashish Kumar, SI Priyanka, Head Constable Rohit Solanki and Constable/Head Constable Ravinder.The special judge at Tis Hazari court hearing cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS Act) had dismissed the plea leading to the present petition before the High Court..By way of background, the petitioner along with another person were apprehended near Geeta Colony in Delhi with 84.350 kilograms of ganja. A case was registered against him under Sections 20 and 25 of the NDPS Act.The petitioner filed a plea before the trial court order under Section 91 of the Code of Criminal Procedure seeking CDRs, location chart and timeline of the SI and constables who were part of the raiding team. The same came to be rejected. Advocate Jitender Sethi, appearing on behalf of the petitioner, told the High Court that the petitioner had been picked up from a different place by a separate raiding party and, therefore, the CDRs of those officers ought to be preserved so that the petitioner could build up his defence.The Court after hearing the parties noted that the trial court has already directed that the CDRs of the raiding party be preserved."What the petitioner is now asking is the CDRs of random officers alleging that they have picked the petitioner from a different place. Other than mere ipse dixit of the petitioner, at this juncture, there is nothing to show that the petitioner had been picked up from a different place by a different raiding party," the Court said.Further, the CCTV camera (footage) have been directed to be preserved, the Court added..On the merits of the arguments, the Court noted that the police personnel whose CDRs were being sought were not part of the raiding team."No doubt, out of six names sought for, Head Constable Rohit Solanki and Constable Ashish Kumar are a part of the witnesses in the present case but their role in the present case is that Head Constable Rohit Solanki had deposited the exhibits of the present case in FSL Rohini for expert opinion and the role of Constable Ashish Kumar is that he had collected the FSL result/expert opinion along with exhibits and deposited the same in Malkhana of P.S. Crime Branch, and, therefore, there is no need to preserve their CDRs. As stated earlier, SI Mukesh Tyagi took over the investigation after the arrest of the petitioner and was not a part of the raiding party and, therefore, his CDRs need not be preserved," the Court said.The Court, therefore, said that it did not find any infirmity with the order of the trial court in refusing the CDRs of superintendents and constables since they were not a part of the raiding team.It, thus, rejected the plea.Besides advocate Jitender Sethi, advocate Hemant Gulati represented Dinesh Kumar. Additional Public Prosecutor Meenakshi Chauhan appeared for the State..[Read Order]