Lawyer Bahadur Abbas Naqvi, an aide of advocate Mehmood Pracha, said lawyers plan to take out a march from the High Court to the Supreme Court on January 22 to hand over a petition by over 1200 lawyers to Chief Justice of India S A Bobde against Delhi Police searches at Pracha’s office.
Former Bombay High Court judge BG Kolse Patil, senior lawyers Prashant Bhushan and Chander Uday Singh came in solidarity with Pracha and said the raid “compromises” the entire criminal justice system and rights of the accused.
A statement by them also demanded a “strict action” against “erring” police officers as well as the judge who allowed the searches.
“Why was it necessary to search his computers and information contained in it in order to get access to an email which is stated to have been sent to various authorities including the commissioner of police, heading the Delhi police…this is a gross violation of law by the police and totally mala fide,” reads the statement.
“Assuming for a moment that it was impossible for the Special Cell to obtain copies of the emails from the recipient, including the commissioner of police, why was no summon or order issued under Section 91 of the CrPC calling upon Pracha to produce the allegedly incriminating documents before taking recourse to the drastic remedy of a search and seizure operation?” it added.
Pracha is a prominent lawyer who had been handling cases of accused persons involved with the Delhi pogrom cases and had been instrumental in getting FIRs registered against the Delhi Police for their “one sided and mala fide investigation” due to which innocent people were also implicated in the FIRs.
