2 complainants say building with shops vandalised on diff days, court grants bail
New Delhi: Noting that there is a "clear discrepancy" in the version of two complainants who claimed that their shops situated on the same building were vandalized on two different dates, a Delhi court on Wednesday granted bail to three accused in a case related to the north-east Delhi riots that broke out last year. In his order granting bail to Parvez, Shahnawaz and Mohd. Shoaib, Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Yadav observed that is a clear discrepancy in the complaint(s) of complainants Brijpal and Diwan Singh since in his complaint dated March 1, Brijpal has stated that the incident had occured on February 25 whereas Singh had alleged that the incident took place a day before on February 24. "The aforesaid discrepancy goes to the root of the matter," ASJ Yadav noted.
The FIR in the matter was registered on March 3 on the complaint of Brijpal wherein he stated that his shop located in Chaman Park was damaged, vandalized and looted by a mob on February 25, following which another person, Diwan Singh filed a complaint of a similar nature and accordingly his complaint was clubbed with this FIR.
Shahnawaz's lawyer, Advocate Dinesh Tiwari, confirmed to Millennium Post that both the shops were located in the same building situated in Chaman Park.
The court further noted that the accused have neither been specifically named in the FIR nor there is any CCTV footage/video clip of the incident available on record.
Further observing that Diwan Singh only named one of the accused, Shahnawaz, in his statement recorded under section 161 CrPC in the matter on April 9 after a delay of 46 days, the court stated that "...no plausible/cogent explanation in this regard has come from the side of prosecution for this humongous delay in recording the statement of this witness".
On the clubbing of the two FIRs, ASJ Yadav went on the state that "whether separate FIR should have been registered on the complaint of Diwan Singh will be seen at the time of trial and at this stage, I am deliberately refraining myself from making any comment on the said topic, lest it may prejudice the case of either side".
