Delhi Court refuses to give relief to Adv Paracha against raid conducted by Special Cell

New Delhi [India], March 26 : A Delhi Court on Friday refused to give relief to Advocate Mehmood Paracha against the second raid conducted by the Special Cell on his office in search of certain data.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) of Patiala House Court Dr Pankaj Sharma while disposing of the application said that the allegations levelled by the petitioner are "baseless".
"Let the search warranted be executed in accordance with the law," mentioned the Court order.
CMM order also stated that "The collection of data from its source is done to ensure its admissibility during the trial and it is imperative for the investigation officer to collect the best form of evidence during the investigation as per its own discretion."
Earlier Court had sought the Delhi Police response on Advocate Pracha's plea which claimed, "The search warrants were aimed to obtain the "target data" and the said data is in the hard disk where other information/files belonging to other clients of the applicant is also available.
In this scenario, the issue relating to retrieval of "target data" without interference with the other data stored in the hard disk has to be meticulously looked upon and at the same time, obtaining "target data" without creating any evidential vulnerabilities for the future purpose has to be considered because it is important for the IO to maintain authenticity and integrity of the "target data", " the Court said in its earlier order.
Given the consent by the applicant Pracha for furnishing data through pen drive or through the production of computer, the court asked how the prosecution proposes to receive "target data" of the pen drive without creating any evidential vulnerability and to retrieve "target data" without any alteration to the metadata associated with the "target data" to prevent further evidential vulnerabilities without any disruption' interference.