The Delhi High Court on Monday issued notice on the revision petition filed by the Delhi Police against the Saket Court order, which had discharged Sharjeel Imam, Safoora Zargar, Asif Iqbal Tanha and eight others in connection with the violence that took place in Jamia Millia Islamia University in 2019.
The Single-Judge Bench of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma ruled that since further probe will be carried out in the case, the observations made by the trial court against the investigation agency in its February 4 order, will neither affect the further investigation, nor the trial of the remaining accused.
The High Court, after conducting a detailed preliminary hearing, listed the matter for further hearing on March 16.
Earlier on February 10, the Division Bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad had listed the case for hearing on Monday, after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta mentioned the matter.
Delhi Police had moved the High Court against the Saket Court order, which had discharged the accused on the grounds that police had not been able to apprehend the ‘actual’ perpetrators and had ‘roped in’ the accused as ‘scapegoats’ in the matter.
On February 4 this year, Additional Sessions Judge Arul Varma at Saket Court had discharged the accused, after observing that police had ‘arbitrarily’ chosen to array some people from the protesting crowd as accused and others as police witnesses.
Coming down heavily on Delhi Police, the court said that this ‘cherry picking’ would prove detrimental to the precept of fairness.
However, the ASJ framed charges against one of the accused, Mohd. Ilyas.
Delhi Police had booked the accused under Sections 143, 147, 148, 149, 186, 353, 332, 333, 308, 427, 435, 323, 341, 120B and 34 of IPC.
Police had filed charges against Mohd Ilyas in its charge sheet on April 21, 2020. Another supplementary charge sheet was filed against 11 other accused, who have been discharged in the matter.
A third supplementary charge sheet was also filed on February 1, during the continuation of arguments on charge.
The prosecution had tried to establish that the witnesses had identified the accused on the basis of some photographs.
The ASJ, however, noted that Delhi Police has failed to adduce fresh evidence and so has presented old facts in the garb of further investigation in the form
of filing another supplementary charge sheet. The Saket Court further noted that there were no eyewitnesses to verify the police’s version regarding the involvement of the accused in the violence.
It also took in view the fact that no test identification parade was carried out during the investigation till filing of the third supplementary charge sheet.
Besides, the ASJ noted that the third supplementary charge sheet had shown some photographs and videos of the accused behind the barricades. However, it merely showed their presence, which the accused have also accepted, but did not prove anything beyond that.
The court said the liberty of citizens who were protesting should be seen as an extension of the invaluable fundamental right to the freedom of speech and expression contained in Article 19, albeit with genuine restrictions and exceptions.
The court said that the investigative agencies need to put technology to use or should manually (with human intelligence) gather credible information.
Police should have abstained from filing such ill-conceived charge sheets against persons, whose role was confined only to being a part of a protest, it added.