Kejriwal charged with assault on chief secy

Dy CM Sisodia, 11 MLAs also named as accused

Delhi Police on Monday charged CM Arvind Kejriwal, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and 11 other 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 chargesheet 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. 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”.

On February 20, police had registered an 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 case was Kejriwal’s former advisor VK Jain, a retired Delhi government officer. Jain, who has recorded his statement before a magistrate, told the police that he had seen Prakash’s spectacles falling after being assaulted by the two MLAs in front of Kejriwal.