HC extends stay on Rs 25k costs imposed on police

New Delhi: Delhi High Court on Monday extended its stay on the Rs 25,000 costs imposed on Delhi Police by a trial court in a case related to the northeast Delhi riots.
Justice Subramonium Prasad posted the matter for November 15, while stating that the interim order continues, after the cops said it had not received the reply of complainant Mohammad Nasir.
The high court, thereafter, granted Nasir a week’s time to bring the reply on record.HC was hearing the police’s plea challenging the trial court order calling its investigation into the case as callous and farcical and imposing a cost. HC had on July 28 stayed the imposition of Rs 25,000 fine but refused to interfere with the trial court strictures against police investigation, saying it could not expunge the remarks without a hearing.
The trial judge had passed the strictures on Delhi Police’s refusal to register an FIR on the complaint of one Mohammad Nasir, who lost his left eye after suffering a gunshot injury during the riots. The high court had earlier issued notice on Delhi Police’s plea against the trial court order and sought the response of the complainant.
In its challenge to the trial court order, police said the imposition of fine, which was to be recovered from the station house officer of Bhajanpura police station and his supervising officers, was unwarranted and uncalled for.
The cops contended that the July 13 order of the trial court was in violation of principles of natural justice as it was passed without giving any opportunity to the DCP to make his submissions, and that very serious remarks were made against the investigation agency even prior to the commencement of trial.
In the order, additional sessions Judge Vinod Yadav had pulled up the cops for lack of efficacy and fairness in the investigation in the case and said that it had been done in a most casual, callous, and farcical manner.