NEW DELHI: A city court said it was “really painful” to see that the standard of investigation in a large number of northeast Delhi riots cases was “very poor” and after filing “halfbaked” chargesheets, police had “hardly bothered” to take the probe to a logical end.
As a consequence, the accused, who were booked in multiple cases, continue to languish in jails. Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Yadav said, “After filing of the chargesheet in the court, neither the investigating officer (IO) nor the SHO and the supervising officers bothered to see what other material was required to be collected from the appropriate authority and what steps were required to be taken to take the investigation to a logical end.”
It was high time the DCP (Northeast) and other higher officers concerned took notice of the observations and took immediate remedial action, the court stated.
Riots probe: City court says senior cops must act to avoid injustice
They (DCP (Northeast) and other higher officers concerned) are free to seek the assistance of experts in this regard, failing which there is a likelihood of injustice being caused to the people involved,” it noted.
The observations came while framing charges against Ashraf Ali and Parvej Ali for allegedly attacking police and rioting in Shiv Vihar with glass bottles, acids and bricks. The court said the ilaka magistrate also failed to monitor the probe during the remand proceedings before taking cognizance of the matter.
The judge said it was “really painful” to note that a large number of cases were pending before it and in a majority of cases, the IOs had not been appearing, either physically or through videoconferencing. “I have also been given to understand that police have not been briefing the special public prosecutors for arguments of charges. In the morning of the date of hearing, they simply emailed a pdf of the chargesheet to the SPP and left it upon him to argue the matter without giving him an opportunity to go deep into the facts and the investigation conducted in the matter,” added the judge.
Noting that the present case was a glaring example wherein the victims were police personnel themselves, the court said the IO still didn’t bother to collect samples of acid/corrosive substances and had their chemical analysis done or collected opinion about the nature of injuries upon the victims. Observing that there was substance in the arguments of the counsel for the accused, the court said absence of the report regarding the nature of injuries to the victims was fatal to the case of the prosecution. The counsel for the accused claimed they were falsely implicated in the matter.
However, the court found substance in the argument that without the chemical analyst’s report, a jolt was caused to the case of police. While this could be due to defective investigation, it couldn’t be held to effect the credibility of the opinion given by the doctor on the medico-legal case of victim constable Ravinder Yadav. “The case cannot be thrown in the dustbin on account of defective investigation by the IO as well as due to lack of supervision by the ACP of the subdivision and DCP of the district,” the judge added.
