NEW DELHI: The Delhi HC on Friday lifted its earlier stay on framing of charges in the alleged larger conspiracy case related to the 2020 riots and allowed the trial court to pass a final order.
Justice Neena Bansal Krishna, who in September 2024 had said that the trial court may continue with the arguments on charges but no final order shall be made, lifted the stay.
The judge also dismissed a plea by Pinjra Tod activist Devangana Kalita, one of the accused in the case, seeking video recordings of the protests against the CAA-NRC that the prosecution relied upon in the case as well as WhatsApp chats of police groups.
During the hearing, Kalita’s counsel had urged the judge to continue the stay order for the time being as she would approach the Supreme Court. “I won’t be able to do that,” Justice Krishna had said in response. The court, however, allowed another plea filed by Kalita in which she sought directions to the police to allow her to inspect the unrelied documents in malkhana, a storage room inside a police station where physical evidence and seized properties related to the case have been stored.
Notably, the Delhi Police had on June 4 placed the matter before Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya, seeking the transfer of the case from Justice Krishna as she had “reserved orders in January in Kalita’s plea seeking video recording and police chats but failed to pass a final judgment.” Police had noted that the timeline set by the Supreme Court for passing judgments in matters reserved by the court had been breached in the case.
