Delhi High Court allows trial court to pass order on charge in Delhi Riots case; lifts earlier stay

The Delhi High Court on Friday vacated its order restraining the trial court from passing a final order on charges in the Delhi Riots conspiracy case. .Justice Neena Bansal Krishna lifted the stay while dismissing a plea filed by Pinjra Tod activist Devangana Kalita seeking video recordings of the protests against the CAA-NRC that the prosecution relied upon in the Delhi Riots case, as well as WhatsApp chats of police groups..Justice Krishna had, on September 12, 2024, passed an order stating that the trial court "may continue with the arguments on charge, but no final order shall be made".Today, the High Court dismissed Kalita's plea. However, the Bench allowed another plea filed by Kalita in which she sought directions to the police to allow her to inspect the unrelied documents in malkhana - a secure storage room or warehouse inside a police station where physical evidence and seized properties are stored..Notably, the Delhi Police on June 4 mentioned the matter before Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya to transfer the case away from Justice Krishna since she had reserved orders in January in Kalita's plea seeking video recording and police chatsm but failed to pass a final judgment. It was the police's case that the Supreme Court has set up a timeline for passing of judgments in reserved matters, and the timeline has been breached in the case. Chief Justice Upadhyaya had said that he will look into the issue on the administrative side. .Delhi Riots: Here's why Delhi Police wants another Delhi HC judge to hear Devangana Kalita's plea.The Karkardooma Court had started hearing arguments on charge in the conspiracy case on September 5, 2024.The accused in the case are Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, Safoora Zargar, Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita, Asif Iqbal Tanha, Tahir Hussain, Khalid Saifi, Isharat Jahan, Meeran Haider, Gulfisha Fatima, Shifa-Ur-Rehman, Shadab Ahmed, Tasleem Ahmed, Saleem Malik, Mohd Saleem Khan, Athar Khan and Faizan Khan. The Delhi Police has invoked stringent provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) against the accused..Advocates Adit S Pujari, Chaitanya Sundriyal, Manvendra Singh Shekhwat, Siddharth Kaushal and Harshwardhan Pushkin Sharma appeared for Devangana Kalita. Delhi Police was represented through Special Public Prosecutors (SPPs) Amit Prasad and Madhukar Pandey as well as Advocates Ayodhya Prasad, Aarush Bhatia, Dhruv Pande, Saravjeet Singh and Harshil Jain. .[Read Judgements]