The Delhi High Court issued an order transferring/posting 11 judicial officers, including seven Metropolitan Magistrates and four Additional Sessions Judges, including Vinod Yadav, who was posted at Karkardooma court.

ASJ Yadav has on multiple occasions passed strong observations against the Delhi Police, calling its investigation “callous and indolent”. His court has so far received 179 riot cases for trial and charges have been framed in 57. He will now be posted as a Special Judge (PC Act) (CBI) at Rouse Avenue court, replacing Special Judge Virender Bhatt, who will take up Yadav’s former posting at Karkardooma court.

In an order recently, Yadav observed that “in a large number of cases of riots, the standard of investigation is very poor”. He also observed that “after filing half-baked chargesheets in court, the police hardly bothers about taking the investigation to a logical end”.

On the general conduct of officers at the forefront of the riot cases, ASJ Yadav had said that it was “really painful to note” that a large number of riots cases have been pending consideration on charges and in a majority of cases, the “IOs have not been appearing in court, either physically or through video-conferencing, at the time of consideration on charge”.

Framing charges against two men accused of attacking the 65th Battalion of the Sashastra Seema Bal during the riots, he had noted, “It is further painful to note that in a large number of cases of riots, the standard of investigation is very poor. After filing of chargesheet in the court, neither the IO nor the SHO nor the supervising officers bother to see as to what other material is required to be collected from the appropriate authority… and what steps are required to be taken to take the investigation to a logical end.”

On September 15, he pulled up the prosecution for delaying arguments on charges in a case against former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain, observing that the “truth will eventually come out”.

His court had discharged Hussain’s brother and two others in a riots case, noting that “when history will look back at the worst communal riots since partition in Delhi, the failure of investigating agency to conduct proper investigation by using latest scientific methods will surely torment the sentinels of democracy”.