Delhi Police’s Delaying Tactics to Evade Prosecution in False Frame ups

In 2005, the Delhi Police claimed that they had arrested six Kashmiri terrorists after a fierce encounter on the NH 8 (near the IGI airport). The police claimed that the arrested men were terrorists who were coming to Delhi from the Jaipur side to plant bombs at the Palam airport. They claimed to have recovered a fake army uniform, hand grenades, AK 47s and cash from the men. Earlier this year, a lower court in Dwarka acquitted all of them of every charge and instead noted that the accused were falsely framed. The judge Virendra Bhatt concluded that the encounter had never occurred and was scripted in the office of the Delhi Police. Judge Bhatt tore apart every piece of evidence that the prosecution had produced: the fake army uniform had been made by a tailor in the Delhi Cantt area who was a stock witness of the police; the grenades that were supposedly recovered were not produced before the court.

The judge ordered that the police party involved in the false frame up should be tried—that an FIR should be filed against them and that a departmental enquiry should be instituted against them. The Judge also ordered the judgement to be treated as a complaint against the police officer by the concerned magistrate. An RTI application filed by JTSA revealed that no FIR had been filed and no enquiry had been launched because the police department appealed against the order in High Court.

The Delhi Police filed two writs in the High Court against the trial court order: one to overturn the acquittal, and the other to stay the filing of FIR against the accused police officers. The counsel of the Kahsmiri men acquitted by the lower court asked his clients to be impleaded in the case but was disallowed after several hearings. While the Hon’ble High Court has granted a stay, the Delhi Police has adopted wily means to delay the hearing. Its counsel continuously pleads absence on frivolous grounds on each hearing, thereby stalling the proceedings. These are tactics to avoid trial and punishment for what Judge Bhatt described as “for the misuse and abuse of their powers as a police officer”. While we think it is the individual’s right to appeal against an unfavourable judgement, it needs to be asked why the Police Department is putting its weight behind these tainted officers, whose guilt has been established so meticulously and unequivocally by the lower court.

Released by Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association (JTSA)
7th December 2011