Kejriwal charged with assault on chief secy
CHARGE SHEET Deputy CM Sisodia, 11 MLAS also named as accused by police
NEW DELHI: Delhi Police on Monday charged chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and 11 other Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders for hatching a criminal conspiracy and assaulting Delhi chief secretary Anshu Prakash at the CM’S residence in February.
In a charge sheet filed at the Patiala House court, police charged the 13 AAP leaders under Indian Penal Code sections for criminal conspiracy, illegal confinement and causing hurt and assault and 10 other offences. Causing hurt to deter a public servant (Section 332), the most serious of charges levelled, carries a maximum punishment of three years in jail, or a fine, or both.
A charge sheet is a report detailing the evidence and list of witnesses, on the basis of which a court starts a trial against an accused person. The court has listed August 25 as the next date of hearing.
HT had reported on June 28 that Kejriwal and Sisodia were likely to be charged by the police.
Delhi chief secretary Anshu Prakash is allegedly assaulted during a meeting at Arvind Kejriwal’s official residence on the night of February 19
Prakash alleges the assault was premeditated. He says Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia and 11 AAP
MLAS were present at the meeting and threatened to “implicate” him in false cases
Delhi Police question
The AAP denied the police’s charges, and a joint statement on Monday by five Delhi government ministers -- Gopal Rai, Satyendar Jain, Kailash Gahlot, Imran Hussain and Rajendra Pal Gautam – said the police action was “politically motivated”. The four said in their statement that the charge sheet would be “torn to shreds when put under legal scrutiny” and that the party would ”contest the case with all the legal strength”. Kejriwal for over three hours over the alleged assault
Kejriwal and his colleagues begin a sit-in at the
On February 20, the Delhi police had registered a first information report (FIR) against AAP MLA ‘Amanatullah Khan and Others’ on Prakash’s complaint alleging that he was called to the chief minister’s residence for a midnight meeting on the night February 19, when he was assaulted by the party legislators in front of the chief minister.
A police officer, who asked not to be named, said that one of the most important witnesses in the Lieutenant- Governor’s office, alleging that IAS officers were on strike since February 20, boycotting meetings with AAP ministers over the case
The Delhi CM’S nine-day sit-in ends after talks with bureaucrats
The Delhi high court directs Prakash and two other bureaucrats to appear before Delhi assembly committees that summoned them for skipping a February 20 meeting case was Kejriwal’s former advisor VK Jain, a retired Delhi government officer. Jain, who has recorded his statement before a magistrate, has told the police that he had seen Prakash’s spectacles falling after being assaulted by the two MLAS in front of Kejriwal, the officer added. Within a month of the incident, VK Jain had resigned as the chief minister’s advisor, citing personal reasons.