The Delhi High Court has quashed two FIRs registered against former Aam Aadmi Party MLA Kuldeep Kumar over an Independence Day Tiranga Yatra conducted in 2021 amid the restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma also quashed the FIR registered over the same incident against four other individuals- Ravinder, Yogesh, Anita Bhatt and Dhirender.

The Court held that the FIRs arose from one continuous transaction and that permitting multiple prosecutions would offend the constitutional protection against double jeopardy.

“Since the impugned FIRs arise from one continuous transaction and satisfy the "test of sameness", the registration of successive FIRs in respect thereof cannot be sustained in law,” the Court said.

It accordingly quashed FIR 413 of 2021 registered at PS Kalyanpuri and FIR 372 of 2021 registered at PS Ghazipur, along with all consequential proceedings.

The Delhi Police alleged that Kuldeep Kumar, then MLA from Kondli Assembly constituency, led a Tiranga Yatra in violation of COVID-19 restrictions, including prohibitory orders, social distancing norms and mask mandates.

Separate FIRs under Section 188 of IPC were registered at New Ashok Nagar, Kalyanpuri and Ghazipur police stations after the procession passed through their respective jurisdictions.

Kumar and others argued that all the FIRs stemmed from the same incident and that Kumar and co-petitioner Ravinder had already been convicted in the New Ashok Nagar FIR.

They contended that continuation of the remaining prosecutions would amount to successive FIRs for the same transaction and violate Article 20(2) of the Constitution of India and Section 300 of CrPC.

Quashing the FIRs, the Court rejected prosecution's submission that every time the Tiranga Yatra entered the jurisdiction of a different police station and continued in violation of the prohibitory orders, it constituted a fresh act of disobedience giving rise to a separate offence under Section 188 of IPC.

The Court held that the material placed on record did not indicate that the Tiranga Yatra had come to an end after the first alleged violation or that the participants had dispersed and thereafter assembled afresh so as to constitute a separate incident.

It added that rather the prosecution case itself was that the rally in question continued to move through different localities.

“Merely because the same procession passed through areas falling under jurisdictions of different police stations, or because the alleged violation of the prohibitory orders continued as the procession progressed, would not, by itself, convert one continuous transaction into multiple independent transactions,” the Court said.

It held that the case satisfied the test of sameness as there was unity of purpose and design, proximity of time and place, and continuity of action.

The Court said that the FIRs arose from one continuous transaction, i.e. the Tiranga Yatra, and that they referred to the alleged violation of the prohibitory orders and the COVID-19 protocols at different points of time as the same procession moved through different localities.

It added that differences in the time and place of reporting by different police officers of different police stations, do not change the character of the offence committed by taking out the Yatra in violation of prohibitory orders and violating the COVID-19 protocols, which was a single transaction.

As the Court quashed the FIRs, it clarified:

“This Court also clarified that the present decision should not be understood to mean that separate FIRs can never be registered in respect of alleged violations of Section 188 of IPC. As noticed in the decisions of the Hon‟ble Supreme Court, where the subsequent incident is distinct, where a counter-version is set up, or where subsequent investigation discloses a larger conspiracy or distinct offence, a second FIR may well be maintainable. The present case, however, does not fall in any of those categories.”

Title: KULDEEP KUMAR v. STATE & other connected matters

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