Kejriwal, Sisodia get bail in chief secretary assault case
NEWDELHI: A local court on Thursday granted bail to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia and nine other Aam Aadmi Party MLAS who are accused of allegedly assaulting chief secretary Anshu Prakash during a midnight meeting at the CM’S residence on February 20 this year. It fixed December 7 as the next date of hearing for the scrutiny of documents.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Samar Vishal granted bail to the 11 accused on a personal bond of ₹50,000 and a surety of like amount after the Delhi Police did not oppose the bail applications. Two MLAS namely Prakash Jarwal and Amantullah Khan were already granted bail by the Delhi High Court.
On August 13, the city police had filed a 1300-page charge sheet against Kejriwal, Sisodia and 11 other AAP MLAS for offences, including criminal conspiracy, assaulting a public servant, threatening to cause death or grievous injury, and wrongful confinement, among others.
The other AAP MLAS include Rajesh Rishi, Nitin Tyagi, Praveen Kumar, Ajay Dutt, Sanjeev Jha, Ritu Raj, Rajesh Gupta, Madan Lal and Dinesh Mohaniya.
The court noted that special prosecutors V Madhukar and Siddharth Aggarwal did not oppose the bail application.
On Thursday, Kejriwal, Sisodia and the other accused were present at the Patiala House court pursuant to the summons issued by the court on September 19 after taking cognizance of the charge sheet filed against them.
The court, while granting bail to the accused, directed them to not tamper with the evidence or intimidate or approach any witness in this case or try to influence the trial in any manner.
“All these accused persons have not been arrested during the investigation, have cooperated in the investigation and appeared today,” the court said.
“Further all accused are highly placed persons and have deep roots in the society and elected members of Legislative Assembly of Delhi,” it added.
Meanwhile, the Delhi Police informed the court that additional commissioner of police Suvashish Chaudhary has been appointed by commissioner Amulya Patnaik to conduct the prosecution of the case.
On October 22, the court had directed that in terms of the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case, the prosecution of the case would be conducted by an additional commissioner of police (equivalent to the rank of DIG) or above and who has not been associated with the case.
The Delhi Police had on February 20 filed an FIR based on Prakash’s complaint, in which he had alleged that he was called by the Kejriwal’s advisor, V K Jain, for a midnight meeting to discuss release of the party’s advertisements related to the government completing three years. During the meeting, two of the MLAS allegedly assaulted Prakash in presence of Kejriwal and Sisodia. The alleged attack had caused a rift between IAS officers and the political executive of the Delhi government.
The police had also informed the court that 13 people had cornered one person to pressurize him to act him in a particular manner.