Delhi riots case: Court calls police probe ‘callous and farcical,’ imposes Rs 25,000 fine

PTI, Jul 14, 2021, 3:16 PM IST

New Delhi: A court here has slapped a fine of Rs 25,000 on the Delhi Police and called its investigation into a Delhi riots case “callous and farcical.”

Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Yadav directed that the amount of fine to be recovered from the station house officer (SHO) of Bhajanpura police station and his supervising officers, saying they miserably failed in their statutory duties.

The police had challenged a magisterial court order that had directed it to register an FIR on the complaint of one Mohammad Nasir, who lost his left eye after suffering a gunshot injury during the riots.

Investigators, however, maintained that there was no need to register a separate FIR as it had already registered one earlier and there was no evidence against the persons who allegedly shot him as they were not present in Delhi at the time of the incident.

The judge pulled up the police for lack of efficacy and fairness in the investigation and said that it “has been done in a most casual, callous, and farcical manner.”

“A copy of this order be sent to the Delhi Police Commissioner for bringing to his notice the level of investigation and supervision in the matter and to take appropriate remedial action under intimation to this Court,” he urther added in an order dated July 13.

The judge said that Mohammad Nasir is free to exhaust his remedies available to him in accordance with the law to get a separate FIR registered in respect of his complaint.

According to advocate Mehmood Pracha, representing the accused, one Naresh Tyagi had allegedly opened fire upon Nasir, as a result of which he suffered a gunshot injury in the left eye.

Despite the request, no FIR was registered by the police, following which they moved the court seeking its registration.