A court here on Wednesday came down hard on the Delhi Police for “wrongly and “casually” clubbing as many as 27 complaints of separate incidents of rioting and arson during the 2020 northeast Delhi riots with a pre-existing FIR, and directed a senior police officer to ensure the additional complaints were investigated properly.

Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala's order came while acquitting three people, who were named as accused in the original FIR with which 27 complaints were clubbed, for the offences of rioting and arson.

Akil Ahmed, Raheesh Khan and Irshad were accused of being part of a rampaging mob that had looted and set ablaze the complainant’s shop in Chandu Nagar on February 24, 2020 during the riots. The judge said the charges were not proved against them beyond reasonable doubt.

While acquitting the three accused in the main case, the court was severely critical of Delhi Police's action of clubbing 27 complaints with the main FIR and improper and inadequate probe into the additional complaints.

“It is also apparent that there was no logical ground with the IO (Investigating officer) to club those complaints in the present FIR and it appears to have been so done in a very casual manner. Hence, I find that all these complaints are wrongly clubbed in the present FIR in a mechanical manner and were not investigated,” the court said.

Consequently, it referred the matter back to the Deputy Commissioner of Police (northeast district) to take further steps on the additional complaints for the purpose of “proper and complete examination.” “In order to rule out any misconception, it is also made clear that as per the finding of this court, those complaints were wrongly clubbed in the present FIR and this observation also should be taken into account for the purpose of taking further steps,” the judge said.

Dealing with the merits of the FIR, the court said the charges levelled against the three accused were not proved beyond reasonable doubt.

“It is once again made clear that in the present case, I have consciously not given any finding in respect of charges qua other incidents based on additional complaints, for the reasons that same was not properly and completely investigated by investigating officer and for such omission of the IO, those complainants should not be prejudiced. Hence, the matter in that respect is being referred to investigating agency again,” it said.

Deprecating the manner of investigation, the court said it was “amply clear” that all the additional complaints clubbed with this case were not completely investigated and the IO was even not aware of the time when such incidents took place.

The court said because of a lack of proper investigation, it was not appropriate for it to still deal with the 27 complaints.

“The IO had already acknowledged in his testimony that he did not have any evidence against the three accused persons charge sheeted in this case in respect of incidents being disclosed in the additional complaints,” it said.

In such a situation, deciding the additional complaints in the present FIR would be an “injustice,” it said.

Regarding the incident of arson at the complainant’s shop, the judgement said it was established that the establishment was actually vandalised and torched by a riotous mob.

The judge, however, said, “I find that the evidence produced by the prosecution fails to qualify the test of credibility in respect of the identification of the accused persons being members of the mob, which was responsible for the incident at the premises of Danish (complainant),” An FIR was lodged after the riots at Dayalpur police station against the three accused under various provisions of the IPC.

The riots, which went on for three days, had erupted in northeast Delhi on February 24, 2020 after skirmishes between citizenship law supporters and protesters spiralled, leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.

As northeast Delhi became the epicentre of violence, clashes also broke out at Jaffrabad, Maujpur, Chandbagh, Khajoori Khas, Bhajanpura, Dayalpur, Gokalpuri and other areas.

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