The court noted that the wrong date of the incident was mentioned in the charges. (File)A Delhi court has pulled up the Delhi Police and prosecution for presenting ‘irrelevant’ witnesses for examination before it in a 2020 North East Delhi riots case, issuing a final warning that such “mishappenings” shall not be taken leniently by the court.
In this case, a prosecution witness was to be examined on Monday. However, the defence counsel pointed out that there is no mention of a complaint of this complainant in the charges framed in this case. The prosecution conceded that “charges were not framed in respect of complaint made by witness present today or even by the witness, who has been summoned for tomorrow.”
It was also pointed out that the wrong date of the incident was mentioned in the charges, the court noted.
Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala said the court will not tolerate “such mishappenings” in the future. “Despite repeated directions given in the past in a number of cases, for the prosecution to go through the record and to check if everything is well with the record, such pain was not taken in this case, either by the prosecutor or by the investigating officer,” the court said.
The court granted one last opportunity, which was sought by the investigating officer (IO) and prosecution.
“After this incident, no more such mishappenings shall be taken leniently by this court and this would be the last warning for the prosecution to wake up. At the cost of repetition of previous directions, it is again reminded that before obtaining summons for any witness, a duty has been cast upon the IO and the prosecutor to ensure relevance of such witness in the case and apparently it was not so done. Therefore, they must take care in future,” the court said.