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A Sessions Court in Delhi has dismissed a petition filed by Delhi Police seeking revision of Magistrate court order directing filing of two separate FIRs. The Additional Sessions Judge, Karkardoma, Vinod Yadav held that the Magistrate court was well reasoned and did not warrant the court’s interference and instead it was the police machinery that was found to be “on the wrong side of the law”. The police had clubbed a complaint relating two incidents of 2 days with an FIR which pertained to an incident of just one day, citing principle of sameness.
The court in turn, schooled the Delhi Police on when the principle of sameness can be invoked in order to club FIRs together by laying it out in a tabular format as follows:
The court said it had come to its notice that in Delhi violence cases there was complete lack of supervision of the investigation(s) by the senior police officers of the District, and implied that the police should get their act together so that victims get justice.
At the outset, the court stated that it had observed in many cases related to the Delhi violence, that several complaints pertaining to a particular area have been clubbed with a single FIR, whereby even as many as 25 complaints have been clubbed with a single FIR having different dates of incidents, different complainants, different witnesses and different set of accused persons.
Background
The criminal revision petition was filed by the state against the order dated October 26, 2020 passed by the Magistrate court, Karkardooma directing the police to file two separate FIRs on complaints made by respondent Nishar Ahmed.
Ahmed had filed an application before the Magistrate court seeking registration of FIR on his complaints dated March 18, 2020 and May 23, 2020. The March 18 complaint had details of acts of unlawful assembly which Ahmed witnessed on February 24, 2020 and February 25, 2020. This was clubbed with a complaint of one Aas Mohammad which was related to incidents of February 25 only. The May 23 complaint was about criminal intimidation whereby Ahmed was threatened to withdraw his complaints and to move away from his house.
Ahmed stated that with respect to his March complaint, he was not supplied with a copy of the FIR, nor the copies of the chargesheet. The May complaint which was about criminal intimidation, was not investigated, neither was he provided with any security by the police. Thus, he approached the Magistrate court which directed vide the impugned order that two separate FIRs be filed. The State argued that it was well within its rights to have clubbed the complaint made by Ahmed with the FIR filed by Mohammad, on the principle of sameness as laid out by the Supreme Court. It is pertinent to note that Ahmed’s complaint pertained to incidents of two days while Mohammad’s complaint pertained to incidents that occurred on just one day.
“This Court failed to understand as to how the complaint of respondent dated 18.03.2020 could have been clubbed with case FIR No.78/2020, when this complaint disclosed commission of cognizable offences on two dates by two different unlawful assemblies,” the court stated.
The court observed that Ahmed’s complaint made in March clearly disclosed commission of cognisable offences, separate from the complaint of Aas Mohammad, on which case FIR No.78/2020 was registered. Further, his complaint made in May, about the criminal intimidation, again disclosed a separate cognizable offence and as such, separate FIR(s) on the aforesaid complaints should have been registered by the police. During the course of the arguments, the public prosecutor duly admitted that at least a separate FIR should have been registered by the police on the May complaint.
“I did not find even semblance of investigation with regard to the criminal conspiracy hatched by the persons named in complaint dated 18.03.2020, by either the local police who investigated the matters under consideration as well as by Special Cell, which investigated the case of larger conspiracy, i.e FIR No.59/2020, PS Crime Branch. Even the offence of criminal conspiracy has not been invoked in any of the cases where either the respondent is complainant or witness,” the court observed. The court also pointed out that Ahmed had made clear allegations against police officials of Gokalpuri Police Station who had refused to register FIR on his complaint and forced him to give merely complaint of theft (on complaint dated March 4, 2020).
The Court refused to interfere with the Magistrate Court’s order by stating that it does not find any substance in the revision petition filed by the State. Instead, it said that the investigating agency was “found to be on the wrong side of law”.
“This Court has found in several cases of riots in the entire length and breadth of police stations in North-East Delhi that there was complete lack of supervision of the investigation(s) by the senior police officers of the District. All is not over yet. If the senior officers now look into the matter(s) and take remedial measures required in the matter(s), so that justice could be given to the victims,” the court stated.
The court found the impugned order of the Magistrate court to be well reasoned with no error of either facts or law or lack of propriety and thus requiring no interference.
Notably, among many such mis-steps of the Delhi Police in clubbing FIRs is a case where an FIR where a person is a complainant has been clubbed with an FIR in which he has been named accused, thus making him a complainant and accused in the same case. The same court, of ASJ Vinod Yadav has stayed the trial of the case, while raising questions on its investigation
The complete order may be read here:
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