HC vacates stay on Delhi riots charges

The Delhi High Court on Friday lifted its earlier stay on framing of charges in the alleged larger conspiracy case related to the 2020 riots and allowed the trial court to pass a final order.

Justice Neena Bansal Krishna vacated the court’s order while dismissing a plea by accused Devangana Kalita seeking direction to the police to provide her certain videos and WhatsApp chats in relation to the case.

After the pronouncement of the verdict, Kalita’s counsel urged the judge to continue the operation of the stay order for the time being, stating that she would approach the Supreme Court with her grievance.

“I won’t be able to do that,” Justice Krishna responded.

The court, however, allowed a separate petition by Kalita and permitted her to inspect the unrelied-upon documents in the case under the anti-terror law UAPA.

Kalita had moved the high court in 2023, claiming that Delhi Police had commissioned certain persons to record the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) in February 2020 and the footage should be supplied to her before the trial court proceeds to hear the arguments on the framing of charges.

She had contended that the footage would show that she was protesting peacefully. Besides the video footage, she had also sought the “entire WhatsApp chat” of a group, alleging that “selective extracts” were being used against the petitioner.

In the judgment, the court stated that all the evidence against Kalita, which is being relied upon by the prosecution, along with the chargesheet, has already been provided to her in compliance with the law, and the entire footage of the riots relevant to the petitioner has also been given.

The court said that only such communication, information, chats of police official groups and WhatsApp groups, which are neither relied upon nor relevant, have not been shared as they may contain sensitive information or privileged communication that cannot be disclosed. “Hence, the WhatsApp Group chats etc pertaining to the police officials and their activities which had not been relied upon were held to be not required to be supplied under Section 207 CrPC,” the court held.