A Delhi court upheld discharge of two accused in a 2020 Northeast Delhi riots case, citing investigative lapses. The court observed grave suspicion lies against the police story, agreeing it is difficult to accept prosecution material at face value.
NEW DELHI: A Delhi court upheld the discharge of two individuals in a 2020 Northeast Delhi riots case, citing multiple investigative lapses and observing that there is a grave suspicion “not on the accused but against the story of the police.”
Additional Sessions Judge Sameer Bajpai was hearing a challenge by the Delhi Police to a trial court order that had discharged Ajay and Gaurav Panchal in a case alleging vandalism and arson.
In its order, the court said,
“This court completely agrees with the observations of the learned trial court that if observed cumulatively, it is difficult to believe the prosecution material at its face value”.
The judge added,
“The court would like to add here that the well settled principle of law is, that while considering charge against an accused person, there has to be not only suspicion but a grave suspicion against him, but in the case in hand the suspicion or grave suspicion is infact not on the accused but against the story of the police,”
The judgment highlighted numerous flaws in the investigation, including an unexplained delay in filing the FIR, contradictions in the complainant’s statements and discrepancies in the medical records of the alleged victim.
The judge noted that the injured person’s name, parentage and address recorded at the hospital did not match the details given in the police complaint.
The court observed,
“It is observed that the police did not take even the police remand of the accused in order to recover the alleged weapons that is ‘danda’ and iron rod and immediately after their arrest, judicial custody of the accused was obtained,”
The ruling also criticised the police for failing to gather key evidence such as CCTV footage from nearby public cameras or shops, for not identifying independent witnesses who were at the scene, and for not properly documenting the incident site.
The judge remarked,
“This court also observes that the manner in which the accused persons were identified by the complainant makes the story of the police doubtful. Further, this kind of identification has not been done in the present case only, but in many cases of riots,”
The court raised further doubts regarding identification, noting that the complainant purportedly recognised the accused at a police station almost two months after the incident, despite earlier describing the attackers only in general terms as young men aged between 20 and 25.
The order stated,
“This is also a major contradiction in the two statements of the complainant and creates doubt in the story of the prosecution. The court observes that these kinds of contradictions would come only when the manipulations are done and the case is cooked up,”
Concluding that the collective weaknesses in the prosecution’s case made the material on record unreliable, the court said it would be unfair and a waste of judicial time to force the accused to face trial.
Accordingly, the court dismissed the state’s revision petition and upheld the trial court’s order discharging the two accused.
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