Form of words:
New Delhi: Delhi High Court Wednesday The four FIRs registered in relation to the 2020 Northeast Delhi riots were quashed, observing that they contained similar sets of facts.
A single bench of Justice Subramaniam Prasad observed that the four FIRs registered on burning of a compound in Maujpur area are contrary to the law laid down by the Supreme Court, which states that no second FIR can be registered for the same offence. .
“The law on the subject has been decided in accordance with the principles laid down by the Supreme Court of India. There cannot be any second FIR and no fresh investigation in respect of the same cognizable offense or same incident giving rise to one or more cognizable offences,” Justice Prasad said.
The order came on a petition filed by Atir, who has been named in five FIRs related to burning of different parts of the same premises during the riots in February last year.
With the decision of the High Court, the police can now proceed with the investigation only under the first FIR registered in this case in March 2020 at the Zafarabad police station.
Read also: In riots case, trial court says Delhi Police’s investigation not good enough, ‘half-hearted’ effort
Four FIRs
The incident mentioned in the FIR took place on 24 February 2020 when a premises in Maujpur area of Northeast Delhi, which had a joint family, was looted and set ablaze by the mob.
According to the accused’s lawyer Tara Narula, all the five FIRs registered against Atir were registered by members of the same family and the same incident was mentioned.
Narula pointed out that all the complainants gave a similar estimate of the damage caused to the building due to the riots, which means that the facts are the same in all cases.
He further suggested that none of the complainants had witnessed the incident or had seen who had started the fire.
Further, the fact that only one fire brigade had put out the fire indicates that only one incident was reported on the spot.
Meanwhile, Special Public Prosecutor Anuj Handa defended the registration of multiple FIRs and argued that the cases pertain to various properties and the damage caused by the arson has to be borne personally.
‘Same in all FIR material’
However, the High Court did not accept the prosecutor’s argument. It cited the site plan submitted by the police in the chargesheet, which showed that all the burnt properties were very close to each other.
The High Court observed that in all the complaints the place of occurrence is located in different parts of the same premises, which are within the same boundary wall.
“All the above FIRs are similar in their content and are more or less replicas of each other and relate to the same incident,” it said.
After examining the contents of the complaint, the High Court bench concluded that the houses in the premises belonged to different members of the same family and were divided by their ancestors, a fact admitted by one of the five complainants.
Since the accused is the same in all the five, the court allowed the police to combine the evidence collected against him into a single surviving FIR in the four quashed FIRs.
Tusshar Kohli is a final year student at Army Institute of Law, Mohali and interning at ThePrint
Read also: Police is lying, says Umar Khalid in Delhi riots case, FIR is a ‘cook-up theory’
subscribe our channel youtube And Wire
Why is the news media in crisis and how can you fix it?
India needs free, unbiased, non-hyphenated and questionable journalism even more as it is facing many crises.
But the news media itself is in trouble. There have been brutal layoffs and pay-cuts. The best of journalism are shrinking, yielding to raw prime-time spectacle.
ThePrint has the best young journalists, columnists and editors to work for it. Smart and thinking people like you will have to pay the price for maintaining this quality of journalism. Whether you live in India or abroad, you can Here.