Clarion India
NEW DELHI – A court pulled up the police by issuing the last warning to the prosecution “to wake up” for producing “irrelevant witnesses” in a case related to 2020 Delhi riots riots.
“Despite repeated directions given in the past in a number of cases, for the prosecution to go through the record and to check if everything is well with the record, such pain was not taken in this case, either by the prosecutor or by the investigating officer,” the court said.
The court passed the order in connection to the proceedings of an FIR registered at the Khajuri Khas police station against three Muslim persons. They are out on bail and the trial is at the witness examination stage.
On Monday, one witness, Manoj Kumar, was present before the court. The counsel for one of the accused persons pointed out that Kumar’s complaint was not mentioned in the charges framed. The defence counsel also pointed out that the wrong date of the incident was mentioned in the charges.
The prosecution then admitted that “charges were not framed in respect to a complaint made by a witness present today or even by the witness, who has been summoned for tomorrow”, The Indian Express reported.
“After this incident, no more such mishappenings shall be taken leniently by this court and this would be the last warning for the prosecution to wake up. At the cost of repetition of previous directions, it is again reminded that before obtaining summons for any witness, a duty has been cast upon the IO and the prosecutor to ensure relevance of such witness in the case and apparently it was not so done. Therefore, they must take care in future,” the court said.
The prosecution also said that several complaints had been clubbed together.
The case will now be heard on November 29.
Communal violence had broken out between the supporters of the Citizenship Amendment Act and those opposing the law in North East Delhi between February 23 and February 26, 2020. The violence had claimed 53 lives and hundreds were injured. The majority of those killed were Muslims.
