Delhi court stays search warrants against lawyer Mehmood Pracha representing Delhi riots accused
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Pankaj Sharma stayed the operation of search warrant after hearing Advocate Mehmood Pracha and Special Public Prosecutor Amit Prasad.
FollowA Delhi court on Wednesday stayed the search warrants issued against advocate Mehmood Pracha, a day after he challenged them following the Delhi Police Special Cells raids on his office, Bar and Bench reported.
The matter will be heard next on March 12, 2021. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Pankaj Sharma stayed the operation of search warrant after hearing Advocate Mehmood Pracha and Special Public Prosecutor Amit Prasad.
The police had searched Pracha’s office in December too. Pracha, who has been fighting cases on behalf of many accused in the large-scale communal violence that broke out in the Capital in February 2020, had said in his plea against the warrant that the Delhi Police’s demand to take away the hard disks of his computers were “completely illegal and unjustified”. The advocate said the documents that the authorities have asked for were “already in their possession from the previous exercise”.
In Wednesday’s hearing, Pracha represented himself. He said that the reply provided by the Delhi Police in response to his application was an “evasive” one and that he was not provided notice under Section 91 of the Code Of Criminal Procedure, before the search, Live Law reported. Section 91 of the CrPC grants power to a court or an officer to issue a summons or written order to a person to produce a document or any other thing that is needed for an investigation or trial.
He sought orders from the court directing the police to retrieve only the relevant information from the hard disk of his computer in the presence of a magistrate, as opposed to seizing the entire hard disk, Bar and Bench reported. He also argued that the police wanted to target his clients.
