Delhi Court rejects plea of ex-chief secy on Kejriwal

New Delhi, June 8 (IANS) A Delhi court on Wednesday dismissed a revision petition filed by former Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash challenging the clean chit given to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia and nine AAP MLAs, in connection with a 2018 case of alleged assault on him.

In the 326-page order, Special Judge Geetanjali Goel said the revision petition is without merits and the same is dismissed.

The counsel for Prakash had submitted that he was summoned to Kejriwal's residence on February 19, 2018 to discuss the difficulty in releasing advertisements to mark the AAP's three years in power.

He submitted that the assault happened in the presence of the Chief Minister, Sisodia, and MLAs with the intention to criminally intimidate and deter him from discharging his lawful duty.

He argued that the Trial Court even while selectively relying on and considering the material available on record, has arrived at divergent findings qua the accused persons, without any basis or justification, by applying different yardstick for different accused persons in relation to their role and involvement in the crime.

In the order, court said: "There is no infirmity, illegality or perversity or impropriety in the impugned order passed by the Ld. Trial Court and the same has been passed after considering the material on record including the statements of witnesses. Applying the test for framing of charge laid down in a catena of decisions, no ground has been made out by the petitioner for interfering with the order of the Ld. Trial Court or for directing framing of charge against the accused persons."

It also said it is the settled law that at the stage of framing of charge, the court is only to see if there is strong suspicion that the accused had committed an offence and not whether the material on record would lead to conviction or not.

On August 11 last year, a Delhi court dropped charges against Kejriwal, Sisodia, and nine other Aam Aadmi Party MLAs -- Rajesh Rishi, Nitin Tyagi, Praveen Kumar, Ajay Dutt, Sanjeev Jha, Rituraj Govind, Rajesh Gupta, Madan Lal and Dinesh Mohania.