Delhi High Court Stays Trial In 'Larger Conspiracy Case' Till Further Orders

The Bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait also issued notices to the Accused in this Case and adjourned the Case to 15^th December 2020.

This Order by the Single Bench was passed in a plea filed by Delhi Police against a a trial court order (Karkardooma, Delhi) directing the police to supply hard copies of the charge-sheet to the accused in the case.

ASJ, Karkardooma Court's orders

Significantly, on October 9, the ASJ, Karkardooma Court Amitabh Rawat had directed the police to file fresh copies of the charge sheet, running over 18,000 pages, after it was informed to the Court that the Police 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.

After this, the Court had ordered the Accused to return the copy of the charge sheets supplied to them.

Further, on October 21, the investigating officer had told the court that the accused were given 16 new pen drives containing the redacted version of the charge sheet and the accompanying documents in terms of the earlier order dated October 9.

To this, the Court had directed the Delhi Police that the accused and their counsels have to be provided hard and soft copies of the fresh charge sheet by November 3.

The Court had said in its order that,

"Once the charge sheet 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."

Police Moves Delhi High Court

Challenging this order of the ASJ, Karkardooma Court Amitabh Rawat, the Delhi Police has knocked the doors of the Delhi High Court.

The Delhi Police filed an application before the Delhi High Court on 3 November, calling Judge Rawat's order "mechanical," "ex-facie erroneous" and "devoid of any merits."

Arguments put forth in the Application of Delhi Police

It has been pleaded in the application that the charge-sheet is of 18,325 pages and that a digital copy via a pen drive has been provided to the accused.

It has been argued in the application that this satisfies Section 4 of the Information Technology Act — "legal recognition of electronic records" — and Section 4 read with Section 81 of the IT Act — Act to have an overriding effect — overrides Section 207 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), the provision that tells the police to provide the charge sheet free of cost to the accused.

According to a report of The Indian Express, the Delhi Police also submitted that the accused have been provided with the soft copy of the charge sheet in compliance with the law.

The Police has also argued that Section 207 CrPC mentions "copy" and does not draw a distinction between "hard" and "soft copy".

It has also been said in the plea that the police report itself runs into about 2,700 pages and the total number of documents and statements of witnesses run into about 18,000 pages.

The plea further argues that the trial court has passed a "mechanical order" while allowing the applications moved by accused under Section 207 CrPC.

Court's Order

Now, the Single Bench of Delhi High Court has issued notices to the respondents/accused persons so that they can file their response and the Court has stayed the trial till further orders. However, the Trial Court has been granted the liberty to decide any application of whatsoever kind.

Background

Notably, in September, the charge sheet in the conspiracy case was filed against 15 accused, including suspended AAP MLA Tahir Hussain, Pinjra Tod activists Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal, former Congress councillor Ishrat Jahan and Jamia Millia Islamia student Safoora Zargar.