Delhi High Court to pronounce verdict on anti-rape protestors' plea tomorrow

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court will tomorrow give its verdict on two separate pleas seeking quashing of the FIR and transfer of probe from city police to CBI in the case lodged for various offences, including rioting and death of constable Subhash Tomar during anti-rape protests here.

Justice G P Mittal, who had reserved the order on March 20, will pronouce the verdict at 2.15pm tomorrow.

The court had heard arguments from the Additional Solicitor General(ASG) for police as well as the eight accused in the case.

"So far as the petition (of eight accused) seeking quashing of the FIR is concerned, this court should not quash the FIR just for the sake of quashing as the FIR. Besides, the unfortunate death of constable Tomar also relates to destruction of public properties, stopping public servants from performing their duties and breach of (prohibitory) order passed under section 144 of CrPC," the judge had said.

The other plea, filed by advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal, seeking a CBI probe into the case, cannot be entertained as he is not "connected" either as a complainant or as an accused or as a witness and moreover, newspaper reports, on their own, cannot form the basis for filing a case like this, he said.