NEW DELHI: A city court has pulled up the Delhi Police for not knowing for nine months that they were "investigating" a case in connection with the northeast Delhi riots, reports Usha Das. Without investigations, which can only begin after registration of a case, the allegations of a person were dismissed, the court said.
The judge further found the stand of the special public prosecutor, appearing for the police, "ludicrous" and "preposterous". The prosecutor had argued that the investigating officer (IO) had "inadvertently" not stated in his status report that the person's complaint had been clubbed with another case and that the allegations were indeed under investigation.
'Entire focus on riot complainant and accused rather than alleged offence'
If this is to be accepted at face value, what it means is that the IO/SHO concerned did not even know from March till November 2020, during which they filed a reply and participated in the proceedings before the magistrate, that this complaint had been clubbed with FIR no. 109/20, which was under investigation. It was only at the time of filing of the present revision petition did they somehow come to realise that they are already investigating the matter," the court observed.
The observations came on a revision petition filed by police against a magistrate court's order directing them to register a separate FIR on the complaint of one Salim, filed through advocate Mehmood Pracha. Salim had claimed that he was assaulted by named and unnamed persons on February 24, 2020, during the riots. He also alleged an attack on his house, firing, stone pelting and intimidation.
While police maintained that Salim himself was accused of rioting, additional sessions judge Amitabh Rawat said there was no illegality or infirmity in the magistrate court's order and directed the deputy commissioner of police (Northeast) to register a FIR on Salim's within seven days.
It added that though the complaint was filed on March 18, 2020, the magistrate court's order was passed on November 23, 2020, not in a haste but after taking some time and going through the arguments of both the sides and the material on record.
The court said that as per the reply filed by the IO, the accused named in the complaint were victims of the riots, and according to CCTV footage, Salim was allegedly found to be involved in the riots and had filed a false complaint to save himself. The report had further stated that Salim faces prosecution in cases where the accused were victims or complainants.
It said that on bare perusal of the report, the reason assigned for not registering the case was because the alleged accused persons were complainants and witnesses in other cases and did not dwell into the allegations contained in the complaint of Salim at all.
"The entire focus is upon the complainant and accused rather than the alleged offence. It must be stated, in no uncertain terms, that before the magistrate, not only did police object to the registration of the FIR, but also side stepped the gravamen of the allegations contained in the complaint of Salim," stated the order.
