‘The State has made a complete mess’: Judge pulls up Delhi Police over 2020 Northeast Delhi riots investigation

Singh was hearing a case registered by the Dayalpur police station, which is at the stage of arguments on framing charges. The January order was passed by another judge who heard the matter earlier.

“It appears that the State has made a complete mess in this matter, ASJ Singh said. “Initially when the arguments on charge were heard, my learned predecessor, vide a detailed order, had made a categorical observation regarding the complete confusion created by the chargesheet of this case,” the judge said in his October 16 order.

“Apparently, instead of conducting further investigation as directed, and to show to the court how these two mobs could have been connected in sharing a common object, the prosecution, if I am bold enough to say so, has tried to circumvent that order…,” ASJ Singh said.

The order of the previous judge, dated January 21, had said: “In such situation, I am unable to get any idea behind prosecution of different incidents commonly in this case, especially when IO (investigating officer) himself was not sure about involvement of a particular mob out of two rival mobs, behind each of such incident.

“Needless to say that for considering the charges against accused persons in this case, a clear-cut picture with support of relevant evidence is required. Common prosecution of different accused belonging to aforesaid two rival mobs in one case, needs to be explained with reference to common objective of each mob.”

ASJ Singh also said that a copy of the order be sent to the Delhi Police Commissioner, who was directed to “ensure remedial action”.

The court was concerned that members of both groups involved in the alleged rioting, who had different objectives, were made accused persons in the same chargesheet. The court noted there was no clarity about the roles that the mobs played.

The judge also said that it seemed as though the supplementary chargesheet in the matter was filed to “defeat the order of the court”.

“Then could it be possible that this supplementary charge sheet no. 3, which was filed with certain undertaking and with certain purpose, was merely to defeat the order of the court?,” the court observed.

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