Delhi court acquits 6 in 2020 riots case, raps police

The court observed that the IO’s claim that he had seen one of the rioters and knew him from before, fell apart, as information was not recorded in case diary

A Delhi court on Monday acquitted six people in the 2020 northeast Delhi riots case, while taking strong exception to them being falsely framed. The court also pulled up the investigating officer in the case for avoiding the defects, leading to an improper judgment.

Noting that being framed in a fake case has led to serious trampling of the right of the accused persons, the court went on to pull up the investigating officer (IO) of the case. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

“It is apparent that merely in order to work out a case, a false case has been foisted upon the accused and head constable Vikas, the only eye witness of the case, is completely unreliable qua (in role of) these accused persons. All the accused are entitled to be acquitted of all the charges,” the order passed by additional sessions judge Praveen Singh stated.

The six people — Ishu Gupta, Prem Prakash, Raj Kumar, Manish Sharma, Rahul and Amit — have been acquitted of various sections of rioting and criminal conspiracy.

Noting that being framed in a fake case has led to serious trampling of the right of the accused persons, the court went on to pull up the investigating officer (IO) of the case, for padding of evidence and higher officials for ignoring the glaring defects in the case.

“Such instances lead to serious erosion of the faith of the people in the investigating process and the rule of law and therefore, I deem it appropriate that the copy of this judgement be sent to the Commissioner of Police for his perusal, with a request to take remedial action,” the judgement said.

Further, the court observed that the IO’s claim that he had seen one of the rioters and knew him from before, fell apart, as the information was not recorded in the case diary.

Highlighting the shoddy investigation, the court said the fact that one of the police witnesses, Mohammad Nasir, was attacked by the accused persons in the case, remained unverified. Initially, Nasir’s name was not written on the medico legal report, but was later added above another name already mentioned.

The court said that the MLC was completely silent about any injuries or fracture to the witness, as has been stated by Nasir in his examination, hence there were serious doubts that the MLC indeed belonged to Nasir.

Accusing the police, the court said that the investigating officer neither bothered to interrogate the doctor or the person who had allegedly dropped Nasir to the hospital, to ascertain the actual sequence of events. The bench supported the defence’s claim that the facts of the case were cooked up at the police’s convenience.