Court drops charges against 7 individuals accused of attempting extortion

Court discharges 7 accused of charge of trying to commit extortion

A court here has discharged seven people who were accused of trying to commit extortion in 2020, saying there was no evidence for framing charges against them.

Deprecating a lapse in the investigation by the Delhi Police, the court observed that the ''matter cannot be kept pending indefinitely in the hope that the investigating agency will awake from its slumber and take steps to collect reliable evidence''.

According to the prosecution, a masked assailant fired two rounds on the glass walls of two jewellery shops in Delhi's Najafgarh on June 23, 2020, and threw a paper slip warning the owner of the shops that the next bullet would be fired on his chest. The paper slip was written by members of the Lawrence Bishnoi-Kala Jatheri gang, the prosecution had said.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Rajat Goyal noted that according to a witness, around 15 minutes before the incident, two masked men on a two-wheeler and three masked men in a car were seen pointing towards the shops.

The magistrate said even after three years, the Delhi Police did not collect the handwriting samples of any of the accused.

''The matter cannot be kept pending indefinitely in the hope that the investigating agency will awake from its slumber and take steps to collect reliable evidence. Thus, there is nothing to even prima facie suggest that the said chit was written by or under the instructions of any of the accused persons,'' he said in an order passed on Saturday.

The court noted the public prosecutor's argument that the car was seized from the possession of accused Parvinder, while the two-wheeler was seized from another accused, Harish.

It said apart from the ''subjective opinion'' of a witness, there was nothing to connect Harish with the assailant who had opened fire and the said persons on the two-wheeler might have been in a hurry as they could have gotten scared after hearing the shots being fired.

Also, none of the prosecution witnesses identified Harish, the court said, adding that there was no material to frame charges against him.

It also discharged Parvinder, saying merely because people in the car were pointing towards the jewellery shop, it cannot be said that they were involved in the incident and that none of its occupants was identified.

The court said the rest of the five accused -- Vikas, Brijesh, Manjeet Panghal, Naresh Yadav and Rishi Raj -- were charged merely on the basis of disclosure statements, either made by them or other co-accused.

''The said disclosure statements have no evidentiary value as no recovery is stated to have been made in pursuance of the same,'' it said, adding that none of the five accused was identified nor was there any evidence to connect them with the incident.

Underscoring that there was ''no material to justify the framing of charges against the accused persons'', the court discharged all the seven accused in the case.

The Najafgarh police station had registered two separate FIRs for the shooting incident in the two shops.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)