Delhi court stays operation of search warrants against advocate Mehmood Pracha

A Delhi Court on Wednesday stayed the operation of search warrants issued against advocate Mehmood Pracha, whose office was recently raided by the Delhi Police.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate at the Patiala House Court Pankaj Sharma will pronounce orders in Pracha's application on March 12, Bar & Bench reported.

Mehmood Pracha had moved the court against the second raid conducted by the Delhi Police's Special Cell on March 9, calling the whole exercise as "completely illegal and unjustified", as per Live Law.

Pracha has been representing many accused persons in the Delhi Riots conspiracy cases that broke out in February last year.

The Delhi Police raided Mehmood Pracha's office in December last year also after stating that that the raid was based on a warrant from a local court to search for "incriminating documents" and "metadata of outbox" of the official email address of Pracha's law firm.

According to Pracha, a second raid was conducted in his absence wherein more than 100 police persons searched his office while he was appearing before the Court of ASJ Dharmender Rana.

It has been contended that the police, while searching his official premises on 24th and 25th of December 2020, have already collected all the documents etc and seized them in a pen drive. According to Pracha, the whole exercise was conducted with the "sole objective of illegally stealing the entire data" of the sensitive cases he has been dealing with, in which the Special Cell itself is the investigating agency.