Court allows spl prosecutor in chief secy assault case

NEW TURN IN CASE Court direction comes after govt turned down home secy’s nod to appoint spl prosecutor

NEWDELHI: A Delhi court on Monday allowed chief secretary Anshu Prakash to have a lawyer nominated by the Delhi Police to contest his case of assault in which chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia have been named as an accused, along with 11 other Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs.

Delhi Police had filed a case on the chief secretary’s complaint that he was assaulted inside Kejriwal’s residence during a midnight meeting on February 19. The AAP leaders have denied Prakash’s allegations.

The alleged assault on the chief secretary had created a rift between the bureaucrats of the Delhi government and the Aam Aadmi Party leaders. Kejriwal accused the IAS officers of boycotting meetings, thereby stalling the government’s development works. In June, Kejriwal launched a sit-in protest at L-G Anil Baijal’s residence, vowing not to leave until the L-G asked IAS officers to resume work.

On Monday, additional chief metropolitan magistrate Samar Vishal also directed that the prosecution of the case be conducted by an additional commissioner of police (equivalent to the rank of DIG) or above, one who has not been associated with the assault case. The court permitted advocates Siddharth Aggarwal and V Madhukar to conduct the prosecution on behalf of the officer of the Delhi Police appointed in this regard. The court’s order came while hearing a plea filed by Prakash, who had moved the court, seeking directions for the appointment of a special public prosecutor (SPP) to contest his case and not the lawyers empanelled by the state government.

In August, the home secretary had written to the home minister, requesting a special public prosecutor because the case was a “serious” one, in which the CM and deputy CM are the accused.

Home secretary Manoj Parida had then told home minister Satyendar Jain that regular public prosecutors (PPs) who work under the elected government may find it difficult to handle the matter.

Jain had declined the request and also said it is ridiculous to say that public prosecutors will act in a “partisan” and “political” manner.

“It is unfair to distrust them or impose upon them any outside advocate unnecessarily,” he had written in his reply to Parida.