NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Saturday appointed a Local Commissioner (LC) to oversee the sealing of advocate Mehmood Pracha's computer in a case of alleged tutoring of a witness in connection with the northeast Delhi riots.
The court directed the official to coordinate with the him a visit to Mehmood Pracha's office. The sessions court, will now hear the matter on April 28. The court's order came after Special Public Prosecutor Amit Prasad did not object to Pracha’s proposal to appoint an LC.
Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana directed the Investigating Officer (IO) to go to Pracha’s office on Saturday and seize and seal the computer. It directed that the entire procedure be videographed in the presence of advocate Avneet Kaur who was appointed as the Local Commissioner.
However, the court added that the computer will remain in Pracha's custody and directed him not to tamper with it. Pracha is representing some of the accused in cases related to the riots that took place in the national capital in February last year.
The court was hearing an appeal by Pracha against a magistrate court order directing the search warrant against him be executed in accordance with law, subject to the safeguards cited by experts.
During Saturday’s hearing, the IO and Pracha stated that the computer in question has not been tampered with so far by either of them. Pracha’s office was raided by Delhi Police in connection with an FIR alleging that the advocate tutored a witness to initiate a false riots case. He had moved the court seeking directions for retrieval of relevant information from his hard disk and raised concerns regarding the protection of his client’s data.