A court in Delhi has fined the prosecution Rs 3,000 for the special public prosecutor’s failure to appear before it in connection with a riots case for ten months, Live Law reported on Monday.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Arun Kumar Garg, in an order issued on Friday, said that the amount should be deducted from the special public prosecutor’s salary.

The court was hearing a case related to the large-scale communal violence that had erupted in North East Delhi in February last year. Fifty three people, mostly Muslims, were killed in clashes that had broken out between supporters of the Citizenship Amendment Act and those opposing it. The Act had triggered protests across the country as it introduced religious criteria for Indian citizenship for the first time.

In the case that Garg took up on Friday, the police sought an adjournment since the special public prosecutor was not present.

The magistrate said that the lawyer had not appeared before the court even once since the filing of the chargesheet on January 30. But, he allowed the hearing to be adjourned on the condition that the State deposit a sum of Rs 3,000 in court.

“I deem it appropriate to direct Commissioner of Police Delhi to conduct an enquiry for fixing the responsibility for imposition of the aforesaid cost and to order to deduction of the same from the salary of the person responsible,” Garg said, according to Live Law.

Last week, another court in Delhi had expressed displeasure at the absence of special public prosecutors at the hearing of a case related to the riots.

“The court has found in several cases that special public prosecutors to whom cases are assigned do not appear, on account of which cases have to be adjourned without conducting any proceedings, thereby resulting in the delay of their disposal,” Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat had said.