The Delhi High Court has been approached by Delhi Police challenging the discharge of Sharjeel Imam, Safoora Zargar, Asif Iqbal Tanha and eight others in 2019 Jamia violence case.
The order was passed by the Saket Courts discharging the accused after observing that the police was unable to apprehend real perpetrators and had surely managed to rope them as scapegoats” in the matter.
The Additional Sessions Judge Pulled up the prosecution for filing incomplete and ill conceived chargesheets.
The Additional Sessions Judge Arul Varma said that he noted how the police has arbitrarily chosen to project some people from the protesting crowd as accused and the other few as police witnesses.
The Court called it cherry picking and said the practise was detrimental to the precept of fairness, the court.
It is however important to note that the court framed charges against one accused, Mohd. Ilyas.
The case in question is that of the violence at Jamia Milia Islamia University in December, 2019.
As per the FIR,the accused were alleged of rioting and unlawful assembly.
As per the report,Sections 143, 147, 148, 149, 186, 353, 332, 333, 308, 427, 435, 323, 341, 120B and 34 of IPC were invoked in the case.
In its chargesheet, the police had filed charges against Mohd Ilyas on April 21, 2020. Another supplementary chargesheet was then filed against 11 other accused persons, who have been discharged in the matter.
Recently a third supplementary chargesheet was also filed on February 1, 2023, during the continuation of arguments on charge.
In its case,the prosecution tried to establish that the witnesses had identified the accused persons on the basis of some photographs.
The judge however noted that the 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.
It also added that there has been no eyewitnesses who could verify the version by police about the involvement of accused in any way.
As per the available records there has been no test identification parade been carried out during the investigation until filing of the third supplementary charge sheet was filed.
The third or the recent supplementary charge sheet shows the photographs and videos of the accused people behind the barricades which merely shows their presence (which they have not denied) but doesn’t prove anything beyond that..
The court said that liberty of citizens who are protesting should be seen as extension of the invaluable fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression which are 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)gathered credible on-information.
The court said that police should have abstained from filing such an ill-conceived chargesheets qua persons whose role was confined only to being a part of a protest.