The trial was set to start soon in the 2020 North-East Delhi riots case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act as a local court in Delhi recently concluded the stage of supply of documents under Section 207 of CrPC with respect to accused persons, except Devangana Kalita.
The trial court would now proceed to the stage of framing of charges against 18 accused persons, more than two years after the proceedings in the case began in September 2020 with the filing of the first charge sheet.
So far, four charge sheets have been filed by the Delhi police in FIR 59/2020, being probed by a special cell. The first charge sheet was filed on September 16, 2020, followed by three supplementary charge sheets on November 22, 2020; February 24, 2021 and March 2, 2022.
Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat of Karkardooma Courts had closed the aspect of compliance on April 5 under Section 207 of CrPC for a total 17 accused, except Kalita.
These include Tahir Hussain, Umar Khalid, Khalid Saifi, Isharat Jahan, Meeran Haider, Gulfisha Fatima, Shifa-Ur-Rehman, Asif Iqbal Tanha, Shadab Ahmed, Tasleem Ahmed, Saleem Malik, Mohd. Saleem Khan, Athar Khan, Safoora Zargar, Sharjeel Imam, Faizan Khan and Natasha Narwal.
As per Section 207 of CrPC, the concerned Magistrate shall provide the copies of documents or relevant material relied upon by the prosecution free of cost to the accused ‘without any delay’.
The documents include police report, FIR, statements of all persons whom the prosecution proposed to examine as its witnesses, confessions and statements or any other relevant document.
The provision aimed at making the accused familiar with the relevant charges brought against him or her by the prosecution and to ensure that the documents relied upon against the accused were fully disclosed to the individual.
The court said that the compliance for Tahir Hussain, Saleem Malik, Tasleem Ahmad, Ishrat Jahan, Shifa- ur-Rehman, Faizan and Natasha Narwal was ‘deemed’ to be completed as they never filed any application seeking documents under Section 207.
The compliance of documents for Sharjeel Imam was already completed on February 7. However, the Counsels representing Umar Khalid and Shadab Ahmad submitted that the compliance was complete except for the issue of relied and unrelied documents, it added.
It was contended that the prosecution had to supply unrelied documents, which was not done yet. A similar issue was raised by the lawyers appearing for Saleem Khan, Gulfisha Fatima, Athar Khan, Asif Iqbal Tanha, Safoora Zargar and Meeran Haider.
It was contended on behalf of Khalid Saifi that the compliance was complete except for the issue of excessive redaction of statements of the protected witnesses and supply of video recordings of statements of unprotected and protected witnesses with necessary redactions.
All the Counsels submitted that at the pre-charge stage, all unrelied documents seized by the probe agency need to be supplied to the accused as they were necessary in the interest of justice and for preparing a defence.
As per Special Public Prosecutor Amit Prasad, only a list of unrelied documents had to be filed, but not at the present stage.
The Court, while passing the order on compliance, observed that it has been held in various judgments that the pre-charge stage was not the stage for filing a list of unrelied statements and documents and that the same would be filed after the charges were framed at the trial stage.
It disposed of the aspect of compliance under Section 207 CrPC for all the accused except Kalita.