WhatsApp chats don’t establish criminal conspiracy, court says discharging 12 

Court drops charge of conspiracy, charges accused for rioting and murder

Noting that there was no way to establish that the accused had “agreed for any particular unlawful object” through their WhatsApp conversations, a Delhi court discharged 12 persons of the charge of criminal conspiracy in the north-east Delhi riots.

Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat in his order noted that the conversations on the ‘Kattar Hindu Ekta’ WhatsApp group nowhere indicated that it had been formed for any particular illegal object. The prosecution had claimed that the group was formed to kill persons belonging to the Muslim community and to vandalize their properties.

“Careful analysis of these chats would reveal that the members were keeping themselves ready for any attack from other communities,” the order observed.

The judge added that there was nothing in the WhatsApp chats to lead the court to any conclusive inference that the members of the group had agreed for any particular unlawful object and for the accomplishment of that unlawful object.

Referring to one of the chats in the group, the court said that one of the accused, Lokesh Solanki, had sent a message on February 26, 2020 at 11:39 p.m., assuring the members that he would be there with them in case of any need or a problem.

The court said that in another message posted by him at 11:44 p.m. on the same day, he boasted of having killed two people belonging to the other community and having thrown them in the drain “but he neither asks the other members also to do the same nor has any other member shown his willingness to indulge in such horrendous act”.

ASJ Bhat said: “The messages posted in the group nowhere indicate that the members had formed the requisite mental state to launch an offensive against the members of the other community and to commit vandalization/arson of their properties and to kill them”.