2020 Delhi riots case: Court acquits 6 for arson, pulls up police over ‘false case’

Acquitting the accused of the charges, the court found that the prosecution had failed to prove its case against them.

A Delhi court has acquitted six accused of committing arson near a mosque during the 2020 northeast Delhi riots, while pulling police for filing a fabricated chargesheet and forging witness accounts to build a false case against them.

A mob allegedly set on fire several shops, houses and vehicles and looted them near one Aziziya Masjid in 2020. (HT Archive)

Additional sessions judge (ASJ) Praveen Singh of the Karkardooma Courts on Saturday flagged severe discrepancies in witness statements, the case diary, and the final chargesheet — all of which, he said, did not corroborate the evidence produced against the accused.

“The case of the prosecution is found to be a built up case on the basis of the witnesses, who initially said they had not seen any of the rioters, but as per their tampered, manipulated and fabricated statements stated that they had seen and recognised the persons,” said the judgment.

“The manipulation (of evidence) becomes completely evident. The statements have been subsequently recorded to implicate the accused. The original statements were withheld from the court and witnesses were suborned.”

The court directed that a copy of the order be sent to the Delhi Police Commissioner to initiate necessary action against those responsible for shoddy investigation and steps be taken to avoid reoccurrence of such an ignominy.

A mob allegedly set on fire several shops, houses and vehicles and looted them near one Aziziya Masjid in New Usmanpur on February 25, 2020. On the basis of CCTV footage and eye-witness accounts, the accused, identified as Prem Prakash, Ishu Gupta, Raj Kumar, Amit, Rahul and Hariom Sharma, were arrested and chargesheeted for criminal conspiracy, rioting, committing mischief by fire and others under IPC.

Acquitting the accused of the charges, the court found that the prosecution had failed to prove its case against them. The judge noted, “I must observe that the audacity and impunity with which the record was tampered with reflects a complete breakdown of the supervisory mechanism.”

The court added that, had the supervisory mechanism worked as it was expected, “the rights of the accused and the expectation of the society that criminal cases are investigated fairly would not have been bulldozed and pulverized.”

On the investigation being conducted by two different investigating officers (IOs), the court said, “In the said chargesheet, the statements, which were part of the case diary till the investigation was conducted by ASI Sita Ram (initial IO), were replaced with completely different statements of head constable Vikas and constable Kishan.”

The ASJ added, “The chargesheet might have been prepared by ASI Sita Ram and had nothing to support the case against the accused as there were no witnesses and videos”.