Delhi Riots Acquittal: Court Cites "Probable Manipulation" in Police Probe

New Delhi – A sessions court in Delhi has acquitted three men accused of arson and rioting during the 2020 Northeast Delhi violence, delivering a scathing indictment of the police investigation, which it found was marred by a "callous manner," contradictory witness testimony, and "probable manipulation" of official records.

In a judgment dated August 14, 2025, Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Parveen Singh of Karkardooma Courts absolved Akil Ahmed, Rahees Khan, and Irshad of all charges, ruling that the prosecution had fundamentally failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. The decision underscores the judiciary's role in rigorously scrutinizing state evidence and raises critical questions about investigative integrity in the sensitive cases stemming from the riots.

The three men were on trial for their alleged involvement in a mob that vandalised and set fire to automobile showrooms in the Chand Bagh area on February 25, 2020. They faced serious charges, including rioting with a deadly weapon, mischief by fire, and criminal conspiracy under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act (PDPP Act).

The Prosecution's Allegations

The case, titled State v. Akil Ahmed @ Papad & Ors. , was built on the premise that the accused were active members of a violent mob. The First Information Report (FIR) was initially registered at Dayalpur Police Station following information about the burning of a Hero Honda showroom. Subsequently, complaints from other business owners, including the managers of Skyride showroom and Raj Automobiles, were clubbed into the same FIR, detailing significant losses from vandalism and arson.

To substantiate its claims, the prosecution examined 21 witnesses. This roster included the affected shop owners, police personnel who were purportedly at the scene, and nodal officers who provided mobile call data records. The prosecution's case rested almost entirely on the identification of the accused by police witnesses. However, as the trial unfolded, this central pillar of their argument began to crumble under judicial scrutiny.

A Case Riddled with Investigative Flaws

ASJ Singh’s judgment methodically dismantles the prosecution's evidence, highlighting four critical areas where the investigation was found wanting. The court's findings paint a picture of an investigation that was not only negligent but potentially dishonest.

1. Contradictory and Unreliable Police Testimony

While several police constables testified to having seen the accused participating in the rioting mob, their accounts were plagued by inconsistencies. The court pointed to a stark "divergence of time" in their statements. One police witness claimed that the arson incidents began after 7:00 p.m. on the day of the incident. In direct contradiction, another officer stated that the situation had calmed down well before that time.

The judge observed that such fundamental inconsistencies undermined the credibility of the identifications. "This divergence of time... has shaken the confidence of this court in the version of these witnesses regarding the identification of the accused persons," the judgment noted. Without a coherent and consistent timeline from its own witnesses, the prosecution's narrative lost its foundation.

2. "Probable Manipulation" of the Case Diary

Perhaps the most damning finding was related to the integrity of the case diary—a crucial record of the investigation's progress. The Investigating Officer (IO) produced a statement that was supposedly recorded on March 1, 2020. However, the court found severe anomalies with this document.

First, the statement itself bore no date beneath it, an unusual omission for an official record. More alarmingly, it was entered in a different case diary book than other statements recorded around the same period. The court refused to accept this as a simple clerical error, instead inferring a more troubling possibility. Judge Singh held that these irregularities pointed toward the "probable manipulation" of records, suggesting that documents may have been created or inserted after the fact to bolster a weak case.

3. Unexplained Delays in Arrest

The court also raised "serious doubt" about the manner in which the accused were apprehended. They were not arrested at the scene of the crime on February 25, 2020, nor were they picked up in the immediate aftermath as the police began their investigations. Instead, Akil Ahmed, Rahees Khan, and Irshad were formally arrested in connection with this FIR only in April 2020, after they had already been taken into custody in a separate riots-related case.

The judgment questioned the logic of this delay, noting the lack of any explanation as to how the police suddenly traced these specific individuals to this particular incident weeks after it occurred. This gap in the chain of events weakened the prosecution's claim that the accused were positively identified as the perpetrators.

4. The Uninvestigated Trigger Incident

Finally, the court highlighted a bizarre and unexplained lacuna at the very heart of the case. The FIR that set the entire investigation in motion was registered after receiving information about a specific incident: the burning of a Hero Honda showroom. Yet, the final charge sheet filed by the police was completely silent on this event.

"Why the incident, which became the starting point of this FIR, wherein other incidents were clubbed later on, was not investigated, has nowhere been explained," the court observed. This failure to investigate the foundational event of the case was described as an example of the "callous manner of investigation."

Upholding the Standard of Proof

In his concluding remarks, ASJ Singh acknowledged that the law does not automatically disqualify testimony from police witnesses. However, he emphasized that for such testimony to be the basis of a conviction, it must be "credible, trustworthy, and consistent." In this instance, the evidence presented by the police failed to meet that standard.

The public witnesses, such as the shop owners, either did not identify any of the rioters or had only witnessed the events from a distance, making their testimony insufficient for conviction. With the public witnesses unable to identify the accused and the police witnesses deemed unreliable, the prosecution's case was left with no credible support.

"In view of the serious doubts about the credibility of witnesses, probable manipulation of case diary and callous manner of investigation, I am of the opinion that prosecution has failed to prove its case beyond all reasonable doubts," the court held, ordering the immediate acquittal of all three accused and the cancellation of their bail bonds.

This judgment serves as a critical reminder of the judiciary's gatekeeping function in the criminal justice system and is likely to be cited in other ongoing Delhi riots trials where the quality and integrity of the police investigation are under challenge.