The Supreme Court dismissed Pinjra Tod activist Devangana Kalita’s plea seeking reconstruction of case diaries linked to the 2020 Delhi riots investigation. The Court refused to interfere with the Delhi High Court order, allowing Kalita to raise allegations of tampering during the trial.
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a plea filed by Pinjra Tod activist and Delhi riots accused Devangana Kalita seeking reconstruction of case diaries related to a criminal case connected to the 2020 Delhi riots.
A Bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and PB Varale declined to interfere with an earlier order of the Delhi High Court which had rejected Kalita’s request for reconstruction of the case diaries maintained by the investigating officers during the probe.
Kalita had approached the courts claiming that the Delhi Police had allegedly tampered with the case diaries and had ante-dated certain witness statements recorded during the investigation. She argued that the case diaries should be reconstructed so that the alleged irregularities in the investigation could be properly examined.
The criminal case relates to protests and a road blockade that took place near the Jafrabad Metro Station in Delhi during the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) demonstrations in 2020. Several activists, including Kalita, were booked in connection with the protests which later became part of the larger investigation into the 2020 Delhi riots.
The dispute over the case diaries first arose before a trial court. In November 2024, the trial court refused Kalita’s request seeking production and examination of the case diaries. While rejecting the plea, the trial court noted that statements recorded under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) do not constitute substantive evidence and therefore the court could not examine allegations of tampering at that stage of the proceedings.
Following this, Kalita challenged the trial court’s order before the Delhi High Court and sought directions to the Delhi Police to preserve the case diaries and reconstruct them in order to ensure transparency in the investigation.
In December 2024, the High Court passed an interim order directing the Delhi Police to preserve the relevant case diaries connected with the case. The Court specifically asked the police to ensure preservation of volume numbers 9989 and 9990.
However, the High Court later refused to grant Kalita’s request for reconstruction of the case diaries. In its order passed in September 2025, the High Court held that it would not be appropriate to reconstruct pages which were not originally part of the case diary in the present matter.
The Court further noted that the investigating officers could have used the same diary booklets while recording statements in multiple FIRs that were being investigated at the same time. Because of this possibility, the Court observed that reconstruction of the alleged missing portions of the case diaries could not be ordered.
At the same time, the High Court continued its earlier direction to the Delhi Police to preserve the case diaries related to the case. The Court also clarified that Kalita would be free to raise her allegations regarding ante-dating of witness statements during the trial proceedings.
Challenging this decision of the High Court, Kalita approached the Supreme Court and requested the top court to direct reconstruction of the case diaries so that the alleged tampering could be examined.
However, after briefly hearing submissions from her counsel, the Supreme Court declined to interfere with the High Court’s ruling and dismissed the plea, effectively bringing the litigation on the issue to a close at the apex court level.
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