A court here ordered Delhi Police to supply former JNU student leader Umar Khalid a copy of the FIR, remand application and remand order of the case related to the north-east Delhi riots in which he was arrested.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Purshotam Pathak noted that it was a settled proposition of law that no person shall be detained in custody without being informed of the grounds for such arrest.
The court said that the remand application, the remand order and medical reports of his examination conducted during police custody “does not contain any material which may not be disclosed due to sensitivity of the matter or for any other reason”.
It also highlighted that the chargesheet in the case has already been filed.
Mr. Khalid in his plea, seeking the documents, said he was arrested in an FIR registered at Crime Branch on September 14, and remanded to police custody for 10 days. Thereafter, he has been remanded to judicial custody till October 22.
Requests were ignored
During the judicial custody period, Mr. Khalid was arrested again in an FIR registered at Khajuri Khas police station, which is being investigated by the Crime Branch. He stated that during the course of the remand proceedings, he made categorical requests to the duty magistrate at Tihar jail for the presence of his lawyer.
However, the request was not entertained, he said.
On the other hand, special public prosecutor vehemently opposed Mr. Khalid’s plea saying that there was no provision in CrPC (Code of Criminal Procedure) to supply the documents before taking cognisance by the court.
The SPP further submitted that if the documents are supplied to Mr. Khalid at this stage, it will open a Pandora box and he will be moving a number of applications for supplying one or the other document.
The court, however, rejected this contention saying, “An accused must be informed of the bare necessary facts leading to his arrest, such as the grounds and the reasons, and the facts that in respect of whom and by whom the offence is said to have been committed as well as the time and the place of offences etc”.
