The Delhi High Court on Monday directed the police to preserve the case diary related to the Jafrabad violence during the February 2020 Delhi riots, which claimed one life, while rejecting a plea for its reconstruction.
A single-judge bench of Justice Ravinder Dudeja issued the order while partly allowing a petition filed by activist Devangana Kalita. “The petition is partly allowed. As far as the request for preservation is concerned, the interim order (dated December 2) is made absolute. So far as reconstruction of police diary is concerned, the same is rejected,” Justice Dudeja said while pronouncing the verdict. A detailed order is awaited.
The petition arose out of Kalita’s challenge to a November 6 order of a city court that had refused to entertain her plea. Along with fellow activist Natasha Narwal, Kalita had alleged that the Delhi Police tampered with and ante-dated witness statements recorded in the case diary.
Earlier, Judicial Magistrate First Class Udbhav Kumar Jain had observed that while Kalita’s submissions had merit, the magistrate’s court could not examine the truthfulness of such allegations “at this stage.”
On December 2, 2024, the High Court had passed an interim order directing the Delhi Police to preserve the diaries, which has now been made absolute.
The case originates from an FIR registered on February 26, 2020, alleging that Kalita, Narwal, former JNU scholar Umar Khalid, and student activist Gulfisha Fatima, among others, conspired to incite unrest in Jafrabad under the pretext of peaceful protests.
Kalita, arrested in the case, was granted bail in September 2020, a decision later upheld by the Supreme Court on June 18, 2021.
