Court raps cops for clubbing 5 plaints from different dates
New Delhi: Rapping the Delhi Police for another instance different complaints being merged into a single FIR, a Delhi Court on Friday granted bail to a man accused in a case of rioting and vandalism during the north-east Delhi riots that broke out last year while observing that it cannot understand how several incidents that occurred on different dates can be tagged into one FIR.
Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Yadav in an order granting bail to one Sonu Singh, noted that a total of five complaints related to vandalism of property, theft and unlawful assembly were merged into a single FIR despite happening on different dates.
ASJ Yadav stated, "A perusal of the case file reveals that the case FIR in the matter was registered on the complaint of 'Khan Communications', dated 28.02.2020; wherein, the date of incident mentioned was 24.02.2020 at 3.30 pm."
The court further noted that the next complaint is of one Rashid, who claimed the incident to be of February 25 last year.
"The third complaint is of one Shahnawaz, who again claimed the incident to be of 25.02.2020".
Another clubbed complaint was that of Mohd. Yunus, who alleged that the incident occurred on February 24 at 4:00 pm; whereas, the last complainant, one Dinesh Singh, claimed that the incident of vandalism occurred between February 25 and 26.
"At this stage, this Court fails to understand as to how the incident(s) of three different dates can be clubbed in one single FIR," ASJ Yadav observed.
The counsel for Singh vehemently argued that the eye witnesses in the case, namely Deepak and Safeddin, are "planted witnesses". "The IO has clubbed several complaints in this FIR, which he could not have done as the dates of incident are different therein," he submitted.
On the statements of public witnesses (PW) in the case, the court said, "PW(s) Mohd. Naved and Shahnawaz are hearsay witnesses; whereas, PW(s) Deepak and Safeddin claimed themselves to be witnesses of the incident of 25.02.2020," the court order read.
ASJ Yadav further noted that there is "hardly any evidence" on record at this stage to conclude that the unlawful assembly of the three dates was the same.
Hence, without commenting upon the merits of the case, the court granted bail to Singh on a bail bond in the sum of Rs 20,000 and one surety of the like amount.
