[Delhi Riots] No respect for time of witness and court, money of public exchequer: Delhi court imposes costs on prosecution

A special court dealing with the Delhi Riots cases has imposed costs on the prosecution for showing “no respect” towards the time of a witness and the court, or the money of the public exchequer [State v. Mohd. Shahnawaz & ors]..Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala observed that the prosecution hadn’t taken steps to drop "unnecessary witnesses" in the trial, despite repeated directions to do so. The order stated,“No respect for time of the witness, time of this court and money of public exchequer, is being shown by prosecution despite repeated directions. Hence, I am compelled to impose a cost of ₹5,000 upon the prosecution. The cost shall be paid in the court on the next date and DCP (deputy commissioner of police), northeast, shall further make enquiry to fix accountability, in order to recover such cost amount from the responsible person.”.The court also requested the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) concerned to sensitise all special public prosecutors (SPPs) and investigating officers (IOs) of all the riot cases to go through their cases and check, if any “irrelevant witness” had been cited, following which they were to take immediate steps to drop them, instead of obtaining summons for such witnesses..While presiding over the examination of witnesses in the case, the court noted that a witness had to be dropped without examination as his statement before the police under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) was recorded at around 6pm on February 25, 2020, whereas the incident in question had reportedly taken place between 12 midnight and 1am in the intervening night of February 24 and 25, 2020.It, therefore, noted that such a witness was “not relevant at all” for the present case and, as a result, he was discharged.Further, the court lamented the fact that the prosecution had not taken any steps despite being repeatedly told to drop unnecessary witnesses.“Unfortunately, despite giving directions to the prosecution in a number of cases for dropping irrelevant and unnecessary witnesses, no such step has been taken in this case by representative of prosecution i.e. special PPs as well as IO. Such directions were also communicated to DCP, northeast, but still the same did not have any positive effect in this case. Since the witness had already come to the court, therefore, he was paid diet money,” it said..The witness examination will continue on November 30..SPP DK Bhatia appeared for the State, while Advocates Salim Malik, Shavana, Babar Chauhan and Abdul Gaffar represented the accused in the case..[Read Order]