A court here on Wednesday pulled up the city police yet again over the north-east Delhi riots probe for “not conducting the case in a proper way” and asked to ensure better coordination between police officers and prosecution.
Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat said that it appeared that the police officers are “confused” as they first moved an application stating that IPC Section 436 — which pertains to causing mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy house, etc. — is not made out and ask for transfer of the case to the Metropolitan Magistrate (MM) and later, after talking to the prosecutor in the case, they wanted to withdraw their own application after finding it meritless.
“This is not a proper way of conducting the case. The present application for transfer of this case to the court of Ld. MM stands dismissed as withdrawn,” the court said.
ASJ Rawat further said that the copy of his order should be sent to the Special Commissioner of Police, Division-I (Law and Order).
Application moved
During the course of hearing in the case, which pertained to vandalism and rioting and involved four persons — Zubair, Ashu, Khalid Ansari and Ashwani alias Kale — as accused, the IO in the case, assistant sub-inspector Satish Kumar, along with the SHO, moved a plea for transfer of the case to the court of Metropolitan Magistrate. “It is stated in the application that Section 436 of the IPC is not made out in the present matter and hence, the present matter needs to be transferred to the court of Ld. Magistrate…,” the order said.
However, after arguments in the matter, the judge said that it appeared from the chargesheet that apart from IPC Section 436, all other Sections as alleged are bailable. “...if IPC Section 436 is taken out, then what remains are offences which are bailable and for which the accused should not have been sent to custody,” the court said.
Further, the application was also regarding the transfer of the said case to Metropolitan Magistrate for which there is no provision in the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), the court said. “It appears that police officers want discharge of the accused persons under IPC Section 436 and thereafter, committal of the case to the court of Ld. Magistrate,” the order read.
However, after the matter was passed over at the SHO’s request, he submitted that he wanted to withdraw the present application after having a word with the Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) who represented the State.
