Delhi riots: Court declines time to police for funds sanction to supply chargesheet to accused

NEW DELHI: A court refused to grant time to the police to obtain funds’ sanction to provide to the accused hard copies of the voluminous chargesheet filed in a case related to the northeast Delhi riots in February, saying they were supposed to act promptly.

The court had on October 9 directed the police to file fresh copies of the chargesheet, running over 17,000 pages, after it was informed that they had “inadvertently” put a document containing the details of some protected witnesses in the copies supplied to the accused booked under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in the case.

Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat was informed by the investigating officer (IO) on October 21 that he had submitted 16 new pen drives containing the redacted version of the chargesheet and accompanying documents following the earlier order.

The court directed that the accused and their counsel be provided both hard and soft copies of the fresh chargesheet.

To this, the IO submitted that the sanction for funds for providing hard copies to every accused was to be obtained from the Delhi government and sought 15 days’ time.

The court, in its order passed on October 21, said it was not ‘impressed’ by his submissions.

“Once the chargesheet has been filed by the investigating agency, as voluminous as it is, then with some alacrity, a copy of it has to be provided in hard copy to every accused which was also the direction of the court.”