NEW DELHI: A Delhi court imposed a cost of Rs 25,000 on the prosecution, to be deducted from the salary of the alleged erring officer, for delay in moving an application for segregation of complaints and conducting further investigation in a northeast Delhi riots case.Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Arun Kumar Garg directed the state to pay the fine to all the seven accused in equal proportion, while noting that the delay led to undue harassment of the accused people, two of whom are still in judicial custody.
The matter was listed for arguments on charge, however, a request for adjournment was made on behalf of prosecution on the ground that further investigation in the present case was being carried out in the wake of an order passed by a sessions court on September 10.
The sessions court had directed that the complaint of Akil Ahmad be separated from the remaining complaints in the FIR as the incident pertaining to his complaint was of February 25, 2020.
During the proceedings before the magistrate court, though the Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) stated that the complaint of Ahmad was segregated, a status report filed by the investigating officer (IO) stated that all the complaints received in the present case, except the complaint of original complainant Faizan Khan, were in respect of the same place of incident, whereas, there is no mention of any specific date and time of incident at the shop of Khan and hence the same has been segregated.
When the IO was directed to produce the case diary to show the investigation carried out by him after the September order, it was submitted by him that no such case diary has been written in the present case after the sessions court’s order.
On the other hand, it was submitted by the SPP, appearing for the state, that the supplementary chargesheet with respect to the complaint of Khan was almost ready and shall be filed within a period of three days.
“In view of inconsistency in the submissions made on behalf of IO as well as SPP regarding segregation of investigation qua the complaint of Akil Ahmad on the one hand and of the complainant Faizan Khan on the other, it is apparent that the prosecution is still not sure as to how it should go about further investigation/prosecution in the present case and the only purpose for seeking permission for further investigation is to derail the further proceedings in the present case,” the court observed.
The court directed the Commissioner of Police to furnish a detailed report regarding steps taken by him to ensure proper investigation/prosecution of the cases pertaining to NE Delhi riots and their expeditious trial within a period of seven days.
This story first appeared on timesofindia.indiatimes.com