A city court on Monday acquitted an autorickshaw driver of rioting and vandalism in a case related to the 2020 North-East Delhi riots.
“The allegations leveled against accused Gurjent Singh are not proved beyond reasonable doubt. Therefore, he is acquitted of all the charges leveled against him in this case,” Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala said in the order.
The court was hearing a case in which a mob vandalized and set a few shops on fire in Bhajanpura area. Based on the complaints of four shop owners – Shahid, Firoz Ahmed, Manjit Singh and Rashid Ahmed, an FIR was registered against Singh for rioting, entering the house, causing mischief with intent to destroy the house.
‘false case’
The accused denied all the allegations and said that he was falsely implicated in the case by the complainants in connivance with the local police only to settle old accounts.
The court said that the most important question is whether the accused was also involved in the incidents as a member of the mob. The court said that to establish the identity of the accused, the prosecution relied on the testimony of a witness who was also a complainant.
“According to the witness, he saw the accused in the mob that had set his showroom on fire. He further said that the accused did this because in the past a trial was going on between him and the father of the accused and the civil suit was pronounced in favor of the witness. Subsequently, in his cross-examination by the defence, the complainant modified his stand to say that his brother had filed a civil suit against the accused’s father and former owner of the property, Basant Singh. This is an indisputable fact as even the accused had relied on it to put the motive of falsely implicating the witness in the case.
The court observed that the complainant had not mentioned the name of the accused before the police earlier. The judge also said that the testimony of the Investigating Officer with regard to the identity of the accused and his arrest is “weak”.