While acquitting a Muslim man in a case connected to the 2020 northeast Delhi pogrom, a Delhi court on Thursday criticized Delhi Police for making “artificial statements” about his alleged involvement in the violence.
Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala of Karkardooma Court observed that though the prosecution established the incident of riot and vandalism, it failed to prove Javed’s presence in the unlawful assembly beyond any reasonable doubt, Live Law reported.
“My foregoing discussion and observations lead me to hold that prosecution though established the incident of riot, and vandalism, but it failed to prove presence of accused in the unlawful assembly responsible for such incidents, beyond reasonable doubts,” the court said.
“It is also established on the record that charge sheet was filed for multiple incidents in this case, in mechanical manner and without actually investigating such incidents properly. There was no evidence of offence u/s 436 IPC and such Section was also invoked without ascertaining the actual situation,” the court said.
On 26 February, 2023, charges were framed against Javed for the offences punishable under Section 147, 148, 427, 435, 436 and 149 of Indian Penal Code, 1860.
While acquitting Javed, Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala compared the testimonies given by the IO and a constable, both prosecution witnesses, regarding his arrest and observed that both had had given different description, Live Law reported.
The judge said: “IO was probably making artificial statement in respect of the time of getting knowledge about involvement of accused Javed in the incidents being probed in this case. That could be reason for him to first claim that Ct. Pawan/PW9 had told him about involvement of Javed on 27.02.2020 itself, but he could not say about the reasons for not mentioning name of Javed in the FIR.”
This comes days after the same court had said it is suspicious that the Delhi Police “manipulated evidence” and filed chargesheets in a “predetermined and mechanical manner” while discharging three Muslim men in a case relating to the 2020 northeast Delhi pogrom.
“It is worth to mention here that this order of discharge is being passed on account of realizing that the reported incidents were not properly and completely investigated and that the chargesheets were filed in predetermined, mechanical and erroneous manner, with subsequent actions to only cover up the initial wrong actions,” Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala of Karkardooma Courts said.
