Curious case of ‘mismatching’ evidence bags: Delhi court orders ACP-level inquiry

However, during a hearing on August 5 before Additional Sess-ions Judge Saumya Chauhan, the counsel of one of the accused disputed that two of the three samples retained were “not matching the description of case property — the plastic dana (granules) in three bags — as mentioned by one of the public witnesses”.

Two of the three bags had white granules of PMMA brand plastic, while one was brown-coloured ABS Resin IP Black brand. The counsel of accused Satyapal Kamboj, from whose godown the two trucks with packets of plastic granules were stolen, told the court that the PMMA brand is imported from South Korea.

The bags submitted in court were stated “to be from Sahibabad”. Following this, the court sought an explanation from the SHO of the police station concerned.

In response to the August 5 hearing, the SHO of Mundka police station stated it was an “inadvertent” mistake. “… traced the right one now and (it) will be produced in court on the next date of hearing,” the SHO’s reply had said.

Investigating officer (IO), head constable Deepak Arya, too, filed a response stating he produced the plastic bags preserved in the case before the court of which one was brown in colour and two were white. “The court noticed two bags are of different description… after that, I checked the description of bags in register no. 19, and took out the entire storeroom material/ case properties. Then, two more plastic bags of the case were found buried… in the store room, which will now be produced before the court…,” he stated.

On the next date of hearing on August 18, the IO produced two more plastic bags recovered from the malkhana (room where seized properties are stored in the police station). However, Kamboj’s counsel advocate Rakesh Malhotra said case properties produced on August 5 and 18 were different. He argued that instead of the three retained samples, there were now five samples, two of which had “discrepancies in their make”.

On September 9, noting the response of the SHO and the IO, the court summoned the SHO to explain the production of the wrong case property and discrepancies in number of retained plastic bags. On September 25, the counsel for Kamboj argued the case property had been tampered with, questioning how two more plastic bags were recovered by malkhana-in-charge in place of three.

Subsequently, the court ordered the entire case property be produced again through the malkhana-in-charge on the next date of hearing. ASJ Chauhan said: “Since case property produced before this court on August 18 had different descriptions than case property produced on August 5, let a letter be sent to the ACP concerned to enquire into the matter”.

It has been listed for October 26.