Delhi riots: Court grants bail to man, says penal section invoked debatable

A Delhi court Tuesday granted bail to a man in a case related to northeast Delhi riots, saying one of the offences under which he was booked is “debatable”.

While granting the relief to Furkan, Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat said that section 436 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was applicable in a case of mischief in respect of destruction of a building, which was ordinarily used as a place of worship, human dwelling or as a place for the custody of property, but the vehicle which was allegedly burnt by the riotous mob was parked at a road.

The court further said that besides section 436, rest of the sections under which Furkan has been booked were bailable.

Furkan was arrested under Sections 147 and 148 (rioting), 149 (unlawful assembly) and 436 of IPC.

“From the reading of the complaint itself and the FIR, the vehicle in question, which was burnt by fire, was parked at a road. The same is also depicted in the site plan, where the place of incident is marked as A, which appears to be on the road, though adjacent to a house. Consequently, the applicability of section 436 IPC to the present case is debatable,” the court said in its order.

It granted bail to Furkan on furnishing a bail bond of Rs 15,000 with one surety of like amount in the case related to burning of a car by the riotous mob in Jafrabad area.

The court further said that the prosecution's interpretation, stating that section 436 IPC would be attracted since the burning of the vehicle was adjacent to a residential house which could have caught fire, did not appear to be convincing.

“Special Public Prosecutor had argued that section 436 IPC would be attracted since the burning of the vehicle, which was parked, which is adjacent/outside of the residential house, had the propensity to lead to catching of the fire of the nearby adjacent residential house.

“This interpretation, at this stage, does not appear to be convincing. However, this issue is not being dealt with in detail as this is only a stage of bail and not charge,” it said.

The court, while granting the bail, directed Furkan however not to tamper with evidence or leave Delhi without its permission.

During the hearing, advocate Rizwan, appearing for Furkan, said the accused has been falsely implicated in the case and there was no cogent evidence against him.

Rizwan further argued that there was no CCTV footage showing Furkan rioting or lighting the car and his mere presence at the spot of the incident was not sufficient to hold that he shared the common intention to commit the offence.

He said the prosecution, while mentioning that the accused was involved in four other cases, ignored the fact that most of the offences under which he has been allegedly framed were petty and bailable.

Special Public Prosecutor Anuj Handa, appearing for the police, opposed the bail plea saying Furkan and his brother were arrested in the case on October 8 and two more accused were still being traced.

Handa said Furkan and his brother could be seen at various times near the vehicle.

He further said that the accused can be seen in a CCTV footage which recorded the sequence of events in the service lane behind the scene of the crime.

He alleged that Furkan can be seen as being part of the unlawful assembly and picking up stones from an empty plot for the purpose of pelting stones and thereafter walking towards the scene of crime.

Communal violence had broken out in northeast Delhi on February 24 after clashes between citizenship law supporters and protesters spiralled out of control leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.