HC asks police to save CCTV footage of March 23 communal flare-ups in Malvani area of Mumbai

Mumbai Jan 28   In a significant development, the Bombay High Court on Saturday asked the Mumbai Police to preserve CCTV footage vis-à-vis 30 March 2023 communal flare-ups in the Malvani area of Mumbai during the Ram Navami festivities.
The instruction comes in response to a petition filed by Muhammad Jameel Merchant, a social activist.
Some of the footage is okay, while some has issues.
The order came from a division bench comprising Justice Revati Mohite Dere and Justice Manjusha Deshpande.
On behalf of Jameel, the battery of lawyers who appeared are Sanjeev Kadam and B. V. Bukhari.
The state was represented by Special Public Prosecutor Kaushik Mhatre and Assistant Public Prosecutor R. M. Pethe.
“Learned Special Public Prosecutor has accordingly filed an affidavit-in-reply of the DCP (Zone XI) Ajay Kumar Bansal. It appears from the said affidavit that the concerned CCTV footage, as directed by an order dated August 9, 2023, has been collected. To the said affidavit-in-reply is annexed the panchanama/Section 65B Certificate, which discloses that some CCTV footage was in working condition and some was not in working condition,” the court noted.
The court also allowed the petitioner to file an independent substantive petition, given the breach of the directions given by the Supreme Court on CCTV video and audio footage.
Merchant, who was made an accused in the case, claims that he was falsely implicated and that he was helping the police control the crowd. “The police are withholding the CCTV footage because they know it will exonerate me,” he said, adding that he had tremendous faith in the judiciary. "From day one, I was confident. I am innocent. I was being implicated. Now things are clear as to why it happened," he said.
According to the petitioner, the reason for seeking such a prayer is that there was pressure from political leaders who were sitting in the police station to lodge an FIR and include the petitioner’s name in the FIR, even though the petitioner was helping and cooperating with the police agency and trying to control the crowd, which was sent to the building compound of the petitioner.
In his petition, Merchant has alleged that the police have refused to share the footage, citing some other reason. He suspects that the footage may be deleted and has therefore urged the court to save it. Merchant has also alleged that the police conspired against him and included his name in the FIR.
He has filed complaints against the Mangal Pra Lodha, Guardian Minister of Mumbai, the Joint Commissioner of Police Satynarayan Choudhary and the Additional Commissioner of Police (North Region) Rajeev Jain, Deputy Commissioner of Police Ajay Bansal, and Malvani Police Station in the Bombay High Court, the Maharashtra Lokayukta, and the Human Rights Commission.
In the Malvani case, an FIR was registered under IPC sections 143, 147, 149, 324, 353, and 332, and investigations were in progress.