Delhi High Court Stays Search Warrant Against Advocate Mehmood Pracha For Office Raids

The Delhi High Court has stayed execution of the search warrant issued by a magistrate and other orders passed by the trial court for conducting raids at the office of lawyer Mehmood Pracha by Delhi Police.

Justice Jasmeet Singh was of the prima facie opinion that Delhi Police had searched Pracha's office premises 24 December, 2020 and that there was no service of notice under section 91 of Cr.P.C.

"For the reasons recorded hereinabove, the order dated 02.03.2021, 04.03.2021, 25.03.2021 passed by learned CMM in FIR No. 212/2020 and order dated 05.11.2022 passed by ASJ-07, New Delhi District in Criminal Revision No. 159/2021 and the search warrant dated 04.03.2021 shall remain stayed till the next date of hearing," the court said while listing the matter for hearing next on January 13.

Pracha has been accused of using "forged" documents in a case connected to Northeast Delhi riots, by police.

After an FIR was registered against the lawyer in August 2020, the Delhi Police obtained a search warrant from a local court to search "incriminating documents" and "metadata of outbox" of the official email address of Pracha's office.

In his plea, Pracha has submitted that the Delhi Police is seeking certain documents from his computer and had in fact already seized them during execution of an earlier such warrant.

Pracha has argued that while he is willing to supply the said documents in compliance of the Code of Criminal Procedure, but the police is insistent upon seizing his entire computer, which contains "sensitive data of thousands of his clients." 

The plea submits that it is "completely arbitrary and against the basic concept of rule of law" for the police to act in an "underhanded manner" and obtain a fresh search warrant even when the whole issue was pending adjudication before the CMM.

"It is clear that there was absolutely no urgency to seek a second warrant as the first warrant itself was obtained four months after the FIR was registered, and the second warrant was sought after more than three months after the first warrant was executed, and the allegation of the petitioner possibly tampering with any evidence does not inspire any confidence," the plea adds.

Pracha had moved an application before the trial court against the second raid conducted by the Special Cell in his office and called the whole exercise as "completely illegal and unjustified".

The plea has been moved through Advocates Jatin Bhatt, Sanawar, Aayushman Aggarwal, Dhruv Yadav and Harshit Gahlot. Pracha was represented by Advocate R.H.A. Sikander.

Title: Mehmood Pracha v. State

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