Delhi court imposes ₹5,000 cost on police for seeking adjournment in riots case

Additional chief metropolitan magistrate Arun Kumar Garg, on September 25, fined the city police after it failed to comply with an order on April 12 by which the court had directed the investigating officer to supply a copy of the charge sheet to one of the accused

New Delhi: A Delhi court has imposed a cost of ₹5000 on the city police for seeking adjournment in a case of northeast Delhi riots and directed an enquiry to decide the responsible officer from whose salary the money was to be deducted.

At least 53 people were killed in the northeast Delhi riots. (AFP)

Additional chief metropolitan magistrate Arun Kumar Garg, on September 25, fined the police after it failed to comply with an order on April 12 by which the court had directed the investigating officer (IO) to supply a copy of the charge sheet to one of the accused Komal Mishra.

The IO submitted before the court that the document has not been supplied till date as he was not aware of the order and sought adjournment to supply it.

This irked the court which went to note that special public prosecutors (SPPs), representing the police, and IOs do not appear in the riots cases on the dates fixed and when they appear, after “prodding of senior officers” by the court, they don’t read the files and come.

It said that the SPPs and the IOs seek adjournment in a “very casual manner” for compliance of directions passed by the court on the dates on which they had not appeared.

“The aforesaid conduct of the police as well as SPPs has already been brought to the notice of senior police officers including SHOs, ACPs, DCP (NE) and Commissioner of Police, Delhi, however, they have failed to ensure that such incidents do not take place anymore,” it noted.

The judge said that since the burden of this cost would fall on the public exchequer, hence an enquiry should be conducted within four weeks to fix accountability.