New Delhi: “None of the witnesses… have supported the case of the prosecution” or stated that they had witnessed the murder of a 32-year-old scrap dealer by a “riotous mob”, a court said while acquitting 13 accused in a 2020 northeast Delhi riots case.
The court also held that an accused could not be convicted again for WhatsApp chats for which he had already been convicted, in view of Article 20 of the Constitution. It held that he knew or had reason to believe the phone was stolen and convicted him under Section 411 IPC for dishonestly receiving or retaining stolen property.
Judge Parveen Kumar Singh held that the prosecution failed to prove charges of murder, dacoity, rioting, arson and destruction of evidence, noting that its alleged eyewitnesses had turned hostile and other testimonies were “completely vague and generalised”. The court found that a mob of around 250 people, of which the accused were members, constituted an “ unlawful assembly ”. It also held that no liability for being armed with a “deadly weapon” could be fastened on a person merely through membership of an unlawful assembly, as there was no evidence attributing any weapon to any accused. On allegations of hate speech, the court observed that the only evidence concerning the assembly was that the crowd raised slogans of “Jai Siya Ram” and “Har Har Mahadev”. However, “merely raising these slogans is not an offence” unless accompanied by acts falling foul of the law. The court further found no evidence of destruction of evidence, arson or other related offences and held that there was “no evidence of any dacoity as such”. However, the court drew an “adverse presumption” against Himanshu Thakur, one of the accused, after he failed to explain his possession of the deceased’s mobile phone.
However, the evidence did not establish that the accused or the assembly had committed rioting. It also noted that the prosecution had failed to establish how, where, when or by whom the scrap dealer was killed.