India News | CS Assault Case: Delhi Court Discharges Kejriwal, Sisodia, 9 Others
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. A Delhi court Wednesday discharged Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and 10 others in a 2018 case of assault on the then chief secretary Anshu Prakash, saying the CM's conduct clearly was "not in consonance with the allegations levelled against him".
New Delhi, Aug 11 (PTI) A Delhi court Wednesday discharged Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and 10 others in a 2018 case of assault on the then chief secretary Anshu Prakash, saying the CM's conduct clearly was "not in consonance with the allegations levelled against him".
Besides Kejriwal, the court discharged his deputy Manish Sisodia and AAP MLAs , Rajesh Rishi, Nitin Tyagi, Praveen Kumar, Ajay Dutt, Sanjeev Jha, Rituraj Govind, Rajesh Gupta, Madan Lal, and Dinesh Mohania.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sachin Gupta however ordered framing of charges against two AAP MLAs -- Amantullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal -- saying that prima facie case was made out against them to proceed further with the trial.
The court ordered framing of charges under sections 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC.
While discharging the politicians, the court said that as per the material available on record, the charges for the offences of unlawful assembly, criminal conspiracy, abetment of offence or criminal act done in furtherance of common intention of all, were prima facie not made out against the accused in this case.
“If during the course of a meeting called by the Chief Minister, whose own conduct is not suspicious at all, if something untoward allegedly happened, that itself does not render the meeting an unlawful assembly or does not make the presence of CM, Deputy CM and other accused MLAs as part of or acting under a criminal conspiracy or sharing common intention or even abetting in any manner, commission of alleged offence,” the judge said in the order.
In its 59-page-order, the court noted that the Chief Minister asked both Amantullah and Jarwal to refrain from committing the crime and even permitted the complainant to leave from there.
Noting that Kejriwal was unhappy about the conduct of both of them and upset after the meeting, the court said, “then how come such a person (Kejriwal) be part of any criminal conspiracy, as alleged, in relation to the said assault or any other offence”.
The court added that from the conduct of Kejriwal and surrounding circumstances, it could not be inferred even remotely that he was part of any such conspiracy, as alleged, much less to draw any inference of his complicity in the commission of offence.
“His conduct clearly is not in consonance with the allegations levelled against him in the present case,” the judge said.
He further said that all the persons present in the meeting were MLAs, “who were the elected representatives of people and not criminals”, who all had gathered there as per the directions of Chief Minister to attend a meeting, in which even as per the version of prosecution star witness, various issues were raised including door step delivery of ration, TV advertisement issues etc.
“So, referring those MLAs as ‘specific MLAs' chosen for some ‘specific purpose', does not make any sense and does not fortify the theory of conspiracy, as portrayed by the prosecution,” the judge said.
The criminal case relates to the alleged assault on Prakash during a meeting at Kejriwal's official residence on February 19, 2018 and besides the chief minister and his deputy, 11 AAP MLAs were also made accused in the case.
Kejriwal, Sisodia and nine other AAP MLAs were granted bail in October 2018.
Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal were granted bail earlier by the high court.
The alleged assault had triggered a bitter tussle between the Delhi government and its bureaucrats.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)