A Court that was dealing with the riots in Delhi has imposed fine on the prosecution for not  showing any respect towards the time of a witness and the court, or the money of the public exchequer.

The Additional Sessions Judge of the Karakardooma courts Pulastya Pramachala said that prosecution did not take any steps to drop “unnecessary witnesses” in the trial, despite getting  repeated directions for the same.

The judge was compelled to impose a fine of ₹5,000 to the prosecution. The court said that the fine shall be paid in the court on the next date and DCP (deputy commissioner of police), Northeast, shall make enquiry to fix accountability,to recover such cost amount from the responsible person.”

The court has also asked the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) to sensitise all special public prosecutors (SPPs) and investigating officers (IOs) of all the riot cases and see if they can find any “irrelevant witness” and  drop them, instead of obtaining summons for such witnesses.

While hearing and going through the case, the court noted that a witness had to be dropped without examination as his statement before the police under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) was recorded at around 6pm on February 25, 2020, whereas the incident in question had reportedly taken place between 12 midnight and 1am in the intervening night of February 24 and 25, 2020.

So in this case the court noted that such a witness was “not relevant at all” for the present case and, as a result, he was discharged.

The court was upset on the fact no steps were taken even after being repeatedly told to drop unnecessary witnesses.

The Court said unfortunately, despite giving directions to the prosecution in a number of cases for dropping irrelevant and unnecessary witnesses, no such step has been taken in this case by representative of prosecution i.e. special PPs as well as IO. Such directions were also communicated to DCP, northeast, but still the same did not have any positive effect in this case. Since the witness had already come to the court, therefore, he was paid diet money.”

The examination of witness will continue on November 30.

SPP DK Bhatia appeared for the State, while Advocates Salim Malik, Shavana, Babar Chauhan and Abdul Gaffar represented the accused in the case.

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