NEW DELHI: Delhi High Court on Wednesday stayed the Rs 25,000 cost slapped on Delhi Police by a trial court in a case related to northeast Delhi riots.
However, the bench refused to interfere with the trial court’s strictures against the police investigation, saying that it would like to hear police and the complainant before expunging the remarks.
Justice Subramonium Prasad’s partial relief came while hearing police’s challenge to the trial court order calling the probe in one of the cases “callous and farcical” and imposing Rs 25,000 cost.
The trial court order came on a challenge to a magistrate’s direction to police to register an FIR on the complaint of Mohammad Nasir, who lost his left eye after suffering a gunshot injury during the riots. The high court issued notice on Delhi Police’s plea against the trial court order and sought response of Nasir in 10 days.
Additional solicitor general S V Raju, appearing for police, said that, at present, the main grievance was against the costs and the strictures. He also maintained that an FIR into the alleged incident had already been thoroughly investigated and the accused was not found at the spot at the relevant time.
Advocate Mehmood Pracha, representing the complainant, alleged that police’s stand was misleading, and his client was under “tremendous pressure to withdraw” his pleas before the court.
In its challenge to the trial court order, police said the fine, which was to be recovered from the station house officer (SHO) of Bhajanpura police station and his supervising officers, was unwarranted and uncalled for.
Additional sessions judge Vinod Yadav in his order had pulled up police for lack of fairness in the investigation and said it was done in a most casual, callous, and farcical manner.
Police had submitted that there was no need to register a separate FIR based on the complaint as it had already registered one earlier. They added that there was no evidence against the people who allegedly shot him as they were not present in Delhi at the time of the incident.
