Tis Hazari firing case: Court grants one more opportunity to Delhi Police to recover weapon of offence

New Delhi [India], July 10 : A Delhi Court on Monday extended the police remand of five accused arrested in the Tis Hazari court firing case. The court granted one more opportunity to Delhi Police to recover the weapon of offence. However, the court pulled up the police for not recovering the weapon during the police remand.

Accused Sachin Sangwan, Aman Singh, Ravi Gupta, Manish Sharma and Lalit Sharma were produced after police custody.

Link Magistrate Katyayini Sharma Kandwal extended the police custody of all accused persons for one day after hearing the submissions of Delhi and counsels for accused persons.

The court directed to produce all accused persons on Tuesday before the concerned court.

Delhi police sought two days extension of remand. It was submitted by Public Prosecutor for State and Investigation Officer (IO) that two days PC remand of the accused persons is required for recovery of the main weapon of offence, apprehension of co-accused persons and joint interrogation of arrested accused persons.

Counsel for accused persons did not oppose the extension of remand and submitted that they fairly concede with the application of the IO and submissions of Public Prosecutor for the State.

Advocate Satish Sangwan and Nikhil Rastogi appeared for the two accused Sachin Sangwan and Lalit Sharma.

On the other hand, advocate Deepak Sharma, Ravish Dedha, Arjun Anand, Sanjay Sharma, appeared for the three accused Manish Sharma, Ravi Gupta and Aman Singh.

However, the Link Magistrate noted that Sachin Sangwan, Aman Singh and Ravi Gupta were sent to Police Custody (PC) for 4 days on July 6, 2023, and accused Manish Sharma and Lalit Sharma were sent to PC for 3 days on July 7, 2023.

The IO, upon query by the court, submitted that part recovery of weapons of offence has already been effected and part recovery still remains to be done.

He further submitted that certain other CO-accused have to be arrested and joint interrogation has to be conducted.

After hearing the submissions of the IO, the court said, "Since Sachin Sangwan, Aman Singh and Ravi Gupta have been in police custody for four days while accused Manish Shama and Lalit Shama have been in police custody for three days, it was expected of the investigating officer to have recovered all weapons of offence as well as effect arrest of all accused persons within the said period especially in light of the fact that all recovery aid arrest had to be made within the territory of Delhi and there was not even a requirement of travelling out of the city to do the same."

"However, in order to provide fair opportunity to the investigating agency to complete effective investigation in the present matter, IO is granted one opportunity to recover the weapon of offence today itself," the court said in the order on July 10.

IO is directed to give a detailed report to the concerned court if recovery is not effected before the NDOH, the court ordered.

All the accused persons are lawyers. However, the licence of some of them have been suspended by the Bar Council of Delhi (BCD).

Accused Lalit Sharma is the brother of Bar Secretary Atul Sharma and Manish Sharma is holding Senior Vice President of the Delhi Bar Association (DBA).

An incident of firing, stone pelting took place in Tis Hazari court premises between two groups of lawyers allegedly led by Manish Sharma and Lalit Sharma on July 5.

Delhi police after lodging a case under sections related to rioting, attempt to murder etc of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Arms Act had arrested the accused persons.