The Delhi High Court today raised questions over the jurisdiction of a special court conducting trial in connection with the death of Arunachal Pradesh student Nido Tania, asking how it could hear the case when the charges under the SC/ST Act against the accused were dropped.
"Whether a designated court, set up to hear matters under special acts, could hear the case once the charges under the SC/ST Act were dropped against the accused persons," Justice P S Teji asked the CBI and the counsel for the accused persons.
When the designated court itself has discharged the accused, how can it conduct the proceedings, the judge added.
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It orally observed that the designated judge for trying the cases under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, should not have kept the matter before it unless and until there was a specific order.
"The case should have been ordinarily transferred before an Additional Sessions Judge," the judge said.
The agency and the counsel for the accused persons told the court that the issue raised by it has not been challenged before any court.
The court then listed the matter for further hearing on August 24.
The court's query came during the hearing of a plea filed by the father of 19-year-old Tania, who was killed in January 2014 after he was allegedly beaten up by some persons at Lajpat Nagar in South Delhi.
Tania's father Nido Pavitra and CBI had moved the high court seeking quashing of the September 25, 2014, order of the sessions court which had held that no charge could be framed against the accused under the provisions of the SC/ST Act.
Initially, police had booked the four accused -- Farman, Pawan, Sunder Singh and Sunny Uppal, under section 302 (murder) of IPC after the postmortem report showed Tania died due to injuries on his head and face caused by a blunt object. The agency had also invoked charges under the SC/ST Act.
Presently Farman is in judicial custody, while the others are out on bail.
During the filing of the charge sheet, the CBI had
dropped murder charges against the accused, saying Tania's killing was not premeditated but a result of an altercation over breaking of a glass counter of a shop in the market.
The four are now facing trial under various sections of IPC, including 304 (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence).
Two minors, who had also allegedly assaulted Tania, are facing an inquiry before the Juvenile Justice Board here.
Tania, a BA first year student in a private university here, allegedly had an altercation with some shopkeepers at Lajpat Nagar market here on January 29, 2014, after they made fun of his hair style.
Following the altercation, the shopkeepers had allegedly thrashed him. Doctors at AIIMS declared him 'brought dead' the next day.
The death of Tania had evoked outrage among the people of the Northeast living in the national capital who had alleged that police had failed to protect him.
