The Delhi High Court on Monday reserved its order on a plea filed by student activist Devangana Kalita seeking preservation and reconstruction of the case diary in connection with a 2020 northeast Delhi riots case.
Justice Ravinder Dudeja reserved the order after hearing detailed arguments from both Kalita’s counsel and the Delhi Police. “Arguments heard. Reserved for order,” the court stated.
Kalita has challenged a trial court’s decision which denied her request to summon the case diary pertaining to the FIR registered at Jafrabad police station. Her counsel alleged that the investigating agency had inserted “antedated” statements into the diary at the stage of framing charges — statements which allegedly accuse her of being involved in “dhakka-mukki (push and shove)” with the police.
The petition contends that these late-introduced statements were neither part of the original record nor disclosed earlier, and thus, an order is required to preserve and reconstruct the case diary to maintain transparency in the investigation.
Opposing the plea, the Delhi Police argued that summoning the case diary at this stage would unnecessarily delay the proceedings. The trial court had earlier ruled that it could not assess the truthfulness of Kalita’s suspicions regarding the investigation’s integrity and advised her to raise the issue at an appropriate stage during trial.
The case is one of several stemming from the February 2020 communal violence in northeast Delhi, which resulted in the deaths of at least 53 people and injuries to over 700 others.
The High Court’s decision, once delivered, could have implications on how procedural concerns around case documentation are treated in ongoing and future riot-related prosecutions.
