Delhi AAP MLA, wife convicted in assault, intimidation case, face jail

A Delhi court on Saturday convicted Aam Aadmi Party MLA from Seelampur Abdul Rehman and his wife Asma under charges of assaulting and criminally intimidating a school principal in Delhi in 2010.

Additional chief metropolitan magistrate Harjeet Singh Jaspal convicted the two accused in a case registered against them in 2010 under sections 353/506 (Para II) r/w 34 of the Indian Penal Code (use of assault to deter public servants from discharging his duty, criminal intimidation and acts done in furtherance of common intention). Asma was additionally convicted in charges under section 332 of the IPC (voluntarily causing hurt to deter a public servant from his or her duty).

The AAP MLA and his wife face a maximum jail term of seven years.

According to rules, if the MLA is sentenced for the more than two years, he will be disqualified from the membership of Delhi legislative assembly.

According to the prosecution, Asma had slapped school principal Razia Begum for denying permission to her daughter to commute to the school by a scooter, and failing to make provisions for safe parking of the vehicle. Begum also alleged that Rehman, along with a few other persons, had barged into the school and threatened to kill her, and abused her with an intention to outrage her modesty.

Rehman said the charges against him are false. “I will move higher court if necessary,” he said.

The lawyers for the MLA and his wife had argued that no medico-legal certificate (MLC) was placed on record to substantiate the allegations made by Razia Begum. They contended that there was a delay of one day in filing the First Information Report, which also lays ground to disbelieve the prosecution’s story. The lawyers also noted that all the witnesses have turned hostile.

However, the court noted that since all other witnesses were government servants they might have found it difficult to depose against an MLA, but there is no embargo that the case cannot be believed based on the testimony of sole witness (Razia Begum).