Natasha Narwal's plea to preserve witnesses' CDRs in UAPA case dismissed

New delhi: A Delhi court has dismissed an application by JNU student and Pinjra Tod member Natasha Narwal for preserving mobile numbers, customer application forms and call detail records (CDRs) of witnesses, including police officials, in the conspiracy case related to the north-east Delhi riots

last year.

Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat said Narwal seemed to be doing a fishing and roving enquiry as she had sought "a wholesome CDRs" of the witnesses including protected witnesses for a period of many months and it was not for a specific instance or a date and with certainty.

The court said privacy was also an issue.

It said there were various issues of safety and security of police officials and their informers which has to be accounted for while dealing with such an application.

"In the opinion of the court, the application under consideration and particularly its prayer is too vague.

The applicant...has only made a submission that she has 'reasons to believe' that 'some' witnesses were not present at the sites indicated by them or they had visited the office of the investigating agency prior to their recording of statement. Thus, the applicant is not certain about her submissions but only has reasons to believe. Said submissions is ambiguous," the court said in its order passed on December 23.

It said it must also be remembered that the investigation in the case was still in progress and dismissed the application saying it was without merits.

The application had sought preservation of call detail records of 26 witnesses, including protected witnesses and police officials, from December 2019 to April 2020, and from there till date of recording of their statements.

The application, moved through advocate Adit S Pujari, claimed that there were reasons to believe that the witnesses were not present at the sites of the protests as indicated in their statements.

It further alleged that the witnesses were called to the Special Cell police station several times prior to the actual date of recording of their statements.

The court said there were more than 1,300 witnesses enlisted, as per the charge sheet, by the prosecution, including forensic lab officials and even the Judicial

Officers.

It added the prayer of the application did not make any distinction between the witnesses and also asked for preservation records for months altogether.

However, in the convenience note filed subsequently, the counsel for the applicant (Narwal) had almost changed his prayer to seeking the preservation of call detail records of 26 witnesses including protected witnesses and police officials.

During the hearing, Pujari said at the present moment he was only seeking preservation of the records while leaving the issue of supply of such records at a later stage.