Court refuses defence lawyer's revision plea, request to access raid footage still in play
New delhi: A Delhi court has refused to direct the police to forthwith supply to advocate Mehmood Pracha a copy of the video footage of the search conducted at his premises last month.
Advocate Pracha, who is representing some of the accused in the north-east Delhi riots cases, had approached the sessions court against an order passed by a magisterial court.
In the hearing held on Tuesday, Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana, who dismissed Pracha's plea, observed that in its order, the magisterial court had neither denied nor conclusively determined his prayer for the supply of video footage.
Evidently, the prayer regarding the supply of video footage has not been disposed of by the Trial Court and the impugned order is purely interlocutory in nature.
I concur with the additional public prosecutor that the instant revision petition is legally not maintainable. In view of the above discussions, the present revision petition stands dismissed, the sessions judge said.
In its order passed on December 27, the magisterial court had directed Delhi Police to preserve the video footage.
Duty Magistrate Udhav Kumar Jain however, had not passed any order on whether to hand over a copy of the video to Pracha.
The judge had said that at this stage, only directions for preserving the video footage were deemed necessary and the concerned court can take a call on supplying the video footage to the applicant Pracha at an appropriate stage.
The court concerned is scheduled to hear the matter further on January 12.
The video footage was submitted by the Investigating Officer in response to the court's earlier order.
Delhi police had alleged that Pracha forged documents and instigated a man to depose falsely in connection with a case related to the violence in north-east Delhi in February this year.
The advocate has been representing various accused and complainants in the violence in north-east Delhi, many of whom had specifically alleged police brutality and complicity during the riots, that Pracha has claimed publicly.
