Delhi court imposes cost of ₹5K on prosecution in case related to Delhi riots

Court calls for sensitisation of police and special public prosecutors to drop irrelevant witnesses 

A Delhi court recently imposed ₹5,000 cost on the prosecution for calling an irrelevant and unrelated witness in a case related to the 2020 Delhi riots. Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala, while dropping the witness’s name, expressed displeasure with Investigating Officers (IOs) and Special public Prosecutors for repetitively wasting the court’s time and public money.

While hearing the matter, Judge Pramachala said it’s unfortunate that 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 the representative of prosecution

“Such directions were also communicated to DCP, North East, 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. No respect for time of the witness, time of this court and money of public exchequer, is being shown by prosecution despite repeated directions,” the Judge said while imposing a cost of ₹5,000 upon the prosecution that had to be paid in the court on the next date.

The court further said that the DCP, North East, “shall further make enquiry to fix accountability, in order to recover such cost amount from the responsible person”. “At the same time, a request is again repeated for DCP, North East to sensitize all Special PPs and IOs of all the riot cases to go through their cases to check, if any irrelevant witness has been cited and to take immediate steps to drop them, rather than obtaining summons for such witnesses,” it added. 

The development ensued in FIR 53/2020 registered at Gokalpuri Police Station.

The order came as a witness was discharged unexamined because on perusal of his statement, it was found that he had spoken about an incident that took place at 6 p.m. on February 25, 2020, though the trial is being conducted in respect of an incident that allegedly occurred between 12 a.m. and 1 a.m. in the intervening night of February 24-25, 2020.