New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday, June 5, dismissed riots accused Devangana Kalita’s petition seeking direction to the police to provide her certain videos and WhatsApp chats in two cases related to the communal violence during the 2020 protests against the CAA and NRC.
Justice Neena Bansal Krishna also refused to continue the court’s interim order asking the trial court not to pass a final order on framing of charges in the case, which pertains to the alleged larger conspiracy behind the unrest.
Kalita’s counsel urged the judge to continue the stay order for the time being, as she would approach the Supreme Court. “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 documents in the larger conspiracy case.
Delhi police commissioned people to record anti-CAA-NCR protests: Kalita
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, “selective extracts” of which were allegedly being used against the petitioner.
On September 12, 2024, the court passed an interim order in the matter and asked the trial court not to pass a final order on framing of charges in the case in the alleged larger conspiracy case under the anti-terror law, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
Student activists Kalita, Natasha Narwal, Jamia Coordination Committee members Safoora Zargar, former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain and several others have also been booked under various FIRs in relation to the riots in the North-East Delhi, which left 53 people dead and over 700 injured in February 2020.
