EX-CS ‘assault’: Court upholds clean chits for Kejriwal, Sisodia
NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Wednesday upheld the clean chit given to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia, and nine Aam Aadmi Party MLAS in a case involving an alleged assault on former chief secretary Anshu Prakash during a midnight meeting in 2018.
On August 11, a city court exonerated Kejriwal, Sisodia and nine AAP MLAS linked to the alleged assault on Prakash, saying that there was no “criminal conspiracy” and “unlawful assembly”.
The judge, however, framed charges against MLAS Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal for obstructing a public servant on duty, assaulting him, and voluntarily causing hurt to Prakash taking note of the statement of the CM’S former adviser VK Jain.
Challenging the decision, Prakash contended that the trial court’s inquiry was inadequate and that it drew erroneous inferences and conclusions without having the benefit of examination of the prosecution witnesses.
Delivering the judgment on Prakash’s revision plea, special judge Geetanjali Goel said that there is “no infirmity, illegality or perversity or impropriety” in the magistrate’s order and that it has been passed after considering the material on record including the statements of witnesses.
“Applying the test for framing
of charge laid down in a catena of decisions, no ground has been made out by the petitioner (Prakash) for interfering with the order of the trial court or for directing framing of charge against A-3 to A-13 for any offence or for directing framing of charges against A-1 (Amanatullah Khan) and A-2 (Prakash Jarwal) for the offences under Sections 342 /506(ii)/120-b/109/114 IPC,” the court said in a 326-page judgment.
The court noted that apart from the fact that there is nothing to show that the assembly was
August 21: Anshu Prakash moves high court, seeks early hearing
Aug 11: Delhi court gives clean chit to CM, deputy CM and nine MLAS. Frames charges against two MLAS Nov 1: Delhi court seeks response of CM, his deputy and nine MLAS on plea by the former chief secretary challenging the clean chit given to them.
May 7: Court reserves order on Prakash’s revision plea
unlawful it was “evident that Kejriwal had restrained Khan and Jarwal from doing what they were doing and as such there is nothing which would make the conduct of the CM, his deputy, or other AAP MLAS inculpatory in any respect”.
The judge said that there must be intentional provision of aid and active complicity to constitute abetment and that in this case, there was nothing to show abetment either by instigation or by provision of aid, where the CM, his deputy or the nine AAP MLAS were concerned.
In his complaint to the police in February, 2018, Prakash alleged that Kejriwal, Sisodia and 11 AAP MLAS assaulted him in a midnight meeting called by the CM’S advisor, VK Jain to discuss release of the party’s advertisements related to the government completing three years in Delhi.
After the court’s judgment, senior advocate N Hariharan, appearing for the CM, said that the trial court’s ruling stands vindicated.
The Delhi Police had filed a charge sheet in August 2018 against Kejriwal, Sisodia and 11 AAP MLAS, Amanatullah Khan, Prakash Jarwal, Rajesh Rishi, Nitin Tyagi, Praveen Kumar, Ajay Dutt, Sanjeev Jha, Rituraj Govind, Rajesh Gupta, Madan Lal and Dinesh Mohania for offences including criminal conspiracy, assaulting a public servant, threatening to cause death or grievous injury, and wrongful confinement.
Rejecting the contentions of the ex-cs, Special judge Goel said that even though the petitioner claimed there was threat to his life from the MLAS “only omnibus allegations had been made”.
“….while the petitioner identified the MLAS who allegedly extended threats to him about confining him in the room for the night and about lodging false SC/ST cases against him, he did not pinpoint even one MLA who extended a threat to his life nor even stated what were the words used by the MLAS while extending the alleged threat to his life,” the judge said, denying the framing charges for criminal intimidation (506) Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The judge also said there was nothing to show there was an intentional insult to Prakash and that abusive language by itself cannot be construed as intentional insult, in absence of specific words being stated. “There is merit in the contention of the Counsel for Tyagi that use of abusive and unparliamentary language per se does not make out any offence under IPC,” the judge said.