New Delhi: The Delhi high court has issued notice in response to a plea by activist Devangana Kalita, who had been arrested and jailed in the 2020 Delhi riots ‘conspiracy’ case.
Kalita, who was released on bail from Tihar Jail in June 2021, is seeking preservation and reconstruction of the case diary. Kalita’s counsel has alleged that the police have added ‘antedated’ statements to the case diary – meaning that the police had allegedly given an earlier date to statements rather than the actual date on which the statements were recorded.
Kalita’s plea is that the police have indulged in evidence tampering.
At the high court on November 14, Kalita’s counsel Adit Pujari started with the allegations of tampering of case diaries that Kalita had earlier presented before a court of the judicial magistrate of first class (JMFC) and pleaded that the court secure the complete booklet pertaining to relevant case diaries.
This booklet in question concerns the probe into an FIR lodged at the Jafrabad Police Station in February 2020.
Pujari, in the plea before the high court, has stated that police had earlier opposed a request to procure the booklet because it would delay the probe further.
On November 6, the JMFC court had said that it could not investigate into the truthfulness and veracity of Kalita’s allegations, stating that the allegations raised a “suspicion on the version of the investigating agency” and asked her to raise the issue at an appropriate stage.
At the high court, Kalita sought that the November 6 order be set aside.
Kalita has alleged that police have been antedating Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) Section 161 statements of witnesses that had been recorded earlier. These are used to strengthen a case diary and were also filed with both the main and supplementary chargesheets in the case.
At the end of the hearing on November 14, Justice Jasmeet Singh issued notice to the Delhi Police on Kalita’s plea and asked them to file their status report and slated the matter for further deliberation on November 25.
On May 23, 2020, authorities arrested Kalita, a student activist, after accusing her of provoking people to indulge in communal violence during the 2020 Delhi riots. Observers and rights’ group believe that Kalita, however, was targeted for leading peaceful protests opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in 2019.
On May 24, 2020, Kalita was released on bail; however, police immediately arrested her again under different charges.
On May 29, 2020, Kalita was charged with new offences as part of the infamous first information report 59/2020. She was charged under the Indian Penal Code, 1967 Arms Act, and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
On June 26, 2020, several UN experts called for the release of Kalita and other protestors, saying that their arrests seem “clearly designed to send a chilling message…that criticism of government policies will not be tolerated.” On June 15, 2021, a Delhi high court granted Kalita bail. On June 17, 2021, Kalita was released from Tihar jail, alongside activists Natasha Narwal and Asif Iqbal Tanha.
Narwal and Kalita are associated with Pinjra Tod, a collective of women students and alumni of colleges and universities across Delhi, fighting for women’s rights. Tanha was a student of Jamia Millia Islamia.
The FIR 59/2020 alleges that the Delhi riots were the consequence of a pre-planned conspiracy hatched by several prominent activists. Of the 18 people charge-sheeted in the conspiracy case, 16 are Muslim.
For another accused in the same case, Gulfisha Fatima, the Supreme Court on November 11 refused to entertain the bail plea.