A court in Delhi on Thursday granted bail to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia and other Aam Aadmi Party legislators accused in connection with the alleged assault of Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash, ANI reported. They were granted bail on the surety that they will not tamper with evidence reports. The court will scrutinise documents next on December 7.
Prakash has accused AAP MLAs Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal of manhandling him at Arvind Kejriwal’s home on February 19. The Chief Minister’s Office, however, denied the allegations. Prakash then filed a complaint with Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal granted bail to all the accused on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and surety of the same amount, PTI reported. “All these accused persons have not been arrested during the investigation, have cooperated in the investigation and appeared today,” the court said.
In the chargesheet, the Delhi Police named 13 Aam Aadmi Party legislators, including Kejriwal and Sisodia. Kejriwal and Sisodia were booked under several sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 120B (criminal conspiracy), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of duty), and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace).
Legislators Amanatullah Khan, Prakash Jarwal, Nitin Tyagi, Rituraj Govind, Sanjeev Jha, Ajay Dutt, Rajesh Rishi, Rajesh Gupta, Madan Lal, Parveen Kumar and Dinesh Mohania are also named in the chargesheet, which several Delhi ministers criticised for being “based on imaginary and false allegations by frustrated elements”. They accused the Centre of conducting a “witch-hunt against the Delhi government that was elected with highest-ever mandate in India’s electoral history”.
In August, the court rejected the Aam Aadmi Party’s plea to restrain the police from sharing information about the chief secretary assault case with the media.
Assembly committee proceedings biased: Prakash
Meanwhile, Prakash on Thursday told the Delhi High Court that the process of summoning him before a privileges committee of the Delhi Assembly for questioning over certain issues was “biased” and “premeditated”, PTI reported.
Prakash had moved the High Court in March after the Privileges Committee served him a notice for skipping a meeting on February 20 – a day after he was allegedly assaulted by two AAP MLAs.
The court will hear further arguments on November 27.
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