NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday directed the police to preserve the case diary connected to the Jafrabad violence during the February 2020 Delhi riots, an incident that left one person dead.
The bench of Justice Ravinder Dudeja made the order while rejecting a petition by student activist Devangana Kalita seeking reconstruction of the police diary. “The petition is partly allowed. As far as the request for preservation is concerned, the interim order (dated December 2) is made absolute. So far as reconstruction of police diary is concerned, the same is rejected,” Justice Dudeja said, pronouncing the verdict, a detailed copy of which is awaited.
Kalita had challenged a city court’s November 6 order that had refused to entertain her plea. She and fellow student activist Natasha Narwal had alleged that the Delhi Police tampered with and ante-dated witness statements recorded in the case diary.
In the city court, judicial magistrate first class Udbhav Kumar Jain observed that while there appeared to be merits in the submissions, the court could not examine the truthfulness and veracity of the allegations “at this stage.” The high court had earlier passed an interim direction on December 2, instructing the Delhi Police to preserve the diaries.
The matter traces back to an FIR registered on February 26, 2020, which accused Kalita, Narwal and others, including Umar Khalid and Gulfisha Fatima, of conspiring to incite unrest in Jafrabad under the guise of peaceful protest.
Kalita was granted bail in September 2020, and that bail order was upheld by the Supreme Court on June 18, 2021. The decision leaves preservation in place pending further documentation.