The cops of the Muzaffarnagar police now found them in catch-22 situation as the directives of high court, now come in their way to initiate further proceedings against Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), president, Amit Shah, in hate speech case. The court has directed the local cops in Muzaffarnagar, to produce Amit Shah in the court along with the charge-sheet, if they wanted the court to take cognizance of the matter and proceed with trial.
Now what come in the cops way to proceed with further action is that either they should arrest Shah, which they could not as per the recent amendment in the Cr PC made by the Centre, or they forced Shah to appear in the court along with the charge-sheet which also not seems possible as why the BJP president comes under any kind of police pressure in the above matter.
Sources confirmed that recently a High Court bench had directed the state police as well as the local courts that they should accept any charge-sheet only if all the persons accused in the CS were present before the concerned court. A senior officer claimed that this posed problem before them to file CS particularly after the amended rules of the Cr PC. He said now filing of CS is only possible either the accused was under pressure of the police team which prompt him to appear in the court or they arrest him in the matter and produce before the court and let the judge decide future course of action. However, they could not proceed with arrest as it was against amended norms of the Cr PC which restrict the cops from making arrest in the cases in which provision of less then 7-years imprisonment could be awarded to the accused.
Sources further confirmed that in the Shah case also, while rejecting the CS on last Wednesday, the local court besides other things, also pointed that why the accused, in this case BJP president was not produced before the court, in absence of whom CS could not be accepted. Sources said that now even if other corrections are made by the local police, the biggest question which hounds the Muzaffarnagar police is that how they should produce the CS in the future as they feel it impossible to force Shah to appear in the court and the new Cr PC rule restricts them to arrest the BJP president as all charges leveled against him had provisions of less then 7-years of imprisonment.
``Yes, the court also directed us to produce Amit Shah at the time of accepting the CS for trial”, confirmed ADG (law and Order) Mukul Goel, while confirming that the directions of the Muzaffarnagar court is on the lines of a recent HC’s directive in this regard. When asked that how they would proceed with filing of the CS in the future, he claimed that they would look into the provisions. ``We had already filed a SlP against the High Court’s directive so if any amendment has been made than we should proceed accordingly and file CS, otherwise they would seek help of the court to help them to produce Shah in the court”, added Goel.
It may be mentioned that local court in Muzaffarnagar, ordered re-investigation into the case registered against BJP president, Amit Shah, for an alleged hate speech he made in April 4 during the lok Sabha campaign. The local court while giving above directions observed that the charge-sheet filed against Shah by the Muzaffarnagar police on July 30 last is two weak to trail the BJP leader, and it also not filed as per the laid procedure which included production of the accused at the time of taking up CS for acceptance. The BJP president was just charge-sheeted for Section 123(3) of Representation of People Act (making an appeal to vote on the grounds of religion amounting to corrupt practice), and 188 of IPC. The cops withdraw the charges against Shah, who was also accused under Section 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, etc.), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class) and 505 (false statement, rumour, etc, circulated with intent to cause mutiny or offence against the public peace) and Section 133 of Representation of People Act.