No bail for ‘history-sheeter’ MLAS, says court
NEWDELHI: A city court on Friday refused to grant bail to AAP MLAS Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal, saying they were “history-sheeters” and that the allegations against them were “very serious in nature”.
The two MLAS are accused of assaulting Delhi chief secretary Anshu Prakash during a midnight meeting at chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s residence.
The court also refused to send the two MLAS to police custody. The police said they needed their custody to “unearth the conspirwas made out against them, even acy” in the case. Jain should be made an accused
But the court said the only new under the Indian Penal Code 365 evidence on record was the state(Abducting with the intent of ment of Kejriwal’s adviser VK wrongfully confining a person). Jain before a magistrate on Delhi Police’s chief spokesperThursday. son Dependra Pathak said Jain
The court attached impor“could be spoken to again in the tance to Jain’s statement before a near future”, but so far he did not magistrate that he had saw Praseem to be a part of an offence that kash being assaulted by the could warrant his arrest.
MLAS. Jain’s statement “cannot A retired IAS officer, VK Jain be looked with suspicion” withis adviser-cum-consultant to the out any evidence to the contrary, CM and, according to the police, Metropolitan Magistrate Shefali he had called the chief secretary Barnala Tandon said. for the meeting.
The AAP MLAS’ defence lawJain told the court he was in yer argued that if at all an offence the washroom when the confron- tation began and when he returned, he saw the two MLAS assaulting the chief secretary.
The AAP alleged Jain gave his statement under police pressure.
Rejecting the bail pleas, the court said the prima facie circumstances pointed to a “premeditated criminal conspiracy”. “Though bail is the rule and jail is an exception, the applications of the present applicants cannot be considered in routine and casual manner, they being historysheeters,” the magistrate said.
The MLAS will spend 14 days in Mandoli jail where they were sent by the court on Thursday.
In their bail application, the MLAS’ lawyer said they were falsely implicated and the alleged offences were not heinous. They said the FIR registered by the chief secretary could be due to “an afterthought” as it was filed after 13 hours and his medical examination was conducted after 20 hours of the alleged assault.
The magistrate said that since the investigations were in the “initial and pre-mature stage”, it could not overlook the possibility of the MLAS “influencing the witnesses” and “hampering the investigation” since they were in power.