A Delhi Court on Wednesday, 11 August, discharged Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia and nine other MLAs, in connection with the alleged assault on former Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash at Kejriwal’s residence in February 2018.
However, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sachin Gupta ordered the framing of charges against AAP MLAs Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal in the matter.
Kejriwal tweeted soon after the development on Wednesday, writing "Satyameva Jayate". (Translation: Truth alone triumps.)
Reacting to the news, Manish Sisodia said, “It's a day of victory of justice and truth. The court said that all allegations in the matter were false and baseless, CM was acquitted today in that false case. We had been saying that the allegations were false. It was a conspiracy hatched against CM,” news agency ANI reported.
Background
Delhi Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash, in a complaint filed to Delhi Police, had alleged that he was manhandled by a few AAP MLAs at Kejriwal's residence, on the night of 19 February, “without any provocation”. A case was registered on Prakash’s complaint.
Prakash wrote that he was called by Kejriwal for a meeting regarding the issue of advertisements, which were not being released. The Aam Aadmi Party, however, claimed he had been called for a discussion on rations.
The MLAs included Amanatullah Khan, Prakash Jarwal, Nitin Tyagi, Rituraj Govind, Sanjeev Jha, Ajay Dutt, Rajesh Rishi, Rajesh Gupta, Madan Lal, Parveen Kumar, and Dinesh Mohania.
Arguing that the alleged assault on Prakash was an “unfortunate and shameful” incident, additional public prosecutor Atul Srivastava said the senior-most officer of the state was criminally intimidated and assaulted, Bar & Bench reported.
Srivastava was quoted as saying, "We say Atiti Devo Bhava where guests should be honourably treated, but treat them like this?"
Kejriwal and 12 others had been booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including Sections 186 (Obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions), 353 (Assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), and 120-B (Punishment of criminal conspiracy).
(With inputs from ANI and Bar & Bench)
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