In the first sentencing in a case related to the February 2020 north-east Delhi riots, a city court on Thursday awarded a 5-year jail term to a man for “being a member of an unlawful assembly, rioting and arson”.
The convict, Dinesh Yadav, had on December 6, 2021, been found guilty of being a member of a riotous mob which had burnt down and vandalised the house of a 73-year-old woman, Manori, in Bhagirathi Vihar.
Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat also ordered Yadav, represented by Advocate Shikha Garg, to pay a fine of ₹12,000. While sentencing Yadav, ASJ Bhat noted that it cannot be gainsaid that the offence committed by the convict was a “very serious one”. “However, no evidence had been led by the prosecution to prove that the unlawful assembly of which the convict was a member, had been formed in pursuance to some conspiracy,” the court said.
The court further said that Yadav had been held guilty only by the virtue of Section 149 of IPC, pertaining to unlawful assembly, and there was no evidence that he had directly committed the offences.
Yadav had been convicted of IPC offences related to rioting and vandalism by ASJ Bhat on December 6 last year. after the court noted that while the public witness statements revealed that the accused had not taken any active part in vandalising, looting or setting on fire the house of the complainant, it cannot be said that “he was only a bystander or a passive spectator” at the spot of incident.
‘Common object’
While convicting Yadav last month, the court had observed: “...he is to be held guilty of all those offences which have been committed by the members of the unlawful assembly for the reason that he shared the common object of other members of the assembly and knew that these offences are likely to be committed in prosecution of the common object of the assembly.”
In the 13-page order, a total of 13 witnesses deposed before the court, including two head constables present on duty during the riots. The complainant, Manori, was declared hostile by the prosecutor after she deposed that she cannot identify any of the rioters as she and her family fled when the incident happened.
According to the case records, 150-200 rioters barged into Manori’s house on February 25, 2020, robbed all valuable items and set it on fire.
