New Delhi: Pulling up the Delhi police for its failure to take appropriate measures for prosecution of Delhi riots cases, in which at least 53 people were killed and hundreds seriously injured, a Delhi court has directed the Commissioner of Police to personally look into the issues and ensure proper prosecution of the riots cases. It also cautioned that failure of the police to do so would constrain the court to pass “an adverse order”, LiveLaw reported.
The Delhi Police falls under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Arun Kumar Garg, made the observations and issued the directions while hearing the case on Friday.
As the prosecutor failed to appear before the court despite repeated calls and the investigating officer (IO) appeared before the court late without reading the police file, Garg made these stringent observations.
When the investigating officer was also not able to answer the court’s queries while it was dealing with the arguments on framing charges against the accused in one of the riots cases, the CMM pulled up the Delhi )olice.
He observed that “such a lackadaisical approach on the part of the prosecution as well as the investigating agency in riots cases has been repeatedly brought to the notice of not only the DCP [deputy commissioner of police] North East and joint CP (Eastern Range) but also brought to the notice of the Commissioner of Police, Delhi”.
Further, the CMM noted that “no steps for proper prosecution of the cases seem to have been taken by either of them, or if taken, have not yet been brought to the notice of this court. The aforesaid failure on the part of said police officers to take appropriate measures for prosecution of riots cases is causing avoidable delay in committal/trial of riots cases.”
The judge also took the prosecution officers to task for their conduct. Referring to the record which showed that the special public prosecutor had not appeared in the case on several occasions and that during the previous hearing, he arrived only after the matter was adjourned, Garg issued directions to the Commissioner of Delhi police to ensure that things were in order.
He directed the top cop to personally look into the issues and ensure proper prosecution of the riots cases, and said failure to do so may result in his passing “an adverse order”, as also imposition of adjournment costs on the state with a direction to deduct the same from the salary of the officers responsible for imposition of the cost.
Garg also directed that an order copy of this case be sent to DCP North-East, Joint CP (Eastern Range), the Delhi Police Commissioner and Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal.
