Delhi Court issues notice to CM Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia in Chief Secretary assault case

A Special Court dealing with cases of legislators on Monday issued notice to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia and other Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) members in an alleged case of assault on the former Delhi Chief Secretary in 2018 [Anshu Prakash v. State of NCT Delhi & Ors]..Special Judge Geetanjli Goel issued notice to all respondents while posting the matter for hearing on November 23, 2021. The revision petition was filed through Advocate Kumar Vaibhaw..On August 11, 2021, a magisterial court had discharged Kejriwal and others in the case where Prakash, then Chief Secretary, was purportedly manhandled by AAP legislators during a meeting. It had, however, ordered framing of charges against MLAs Amantullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal in the matter.."Accused persons namely Arvind Kejriwal (A-3), Manish Sisodia (A-4), Rajesh Rishi (A5), Nitin Tyagi (A-6), Praveen Kumar (A-7), Ajay Dutt (A-8), Sanjeev Jha (A-9), Rituraj Govind (A-10), Rajesh Gupta (A-11), Madan Lal (A-12) and Dinesh Mohania (A-13) are discharged in the present case. Whereas, prima facie case for offences under section 186/332/353/323/34 IPC is made out against the accused persons namely Amanatullah Khan (A-1) and Prakash Jarwal (A-2)," held Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sachin Gupta on August 11..The revision petition, however, argued that the trial court had “erroneously discharged 11 Accused persons namely Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Rajesh Rishi, Nitin Tyagi, Praveen Kumar, Ajay Dutt, Sanjeev Jha, Rituraj Govind, Rajesh Gupta, Madan Lal and Dinesh Mohania of all the charges, while ordering framing of charge only under Section 186/332/353/323/34 of Indian Penal Code, against Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal.".Prakash contended that the trial court did not look into statements of all the witnesses and caused “miscarriage of justice” by “virtually not believing” his account.The prosecution had argued that the alleged assault on Prakash was an “unfortunate and shameful” incident where senior officer was criminally intimidated and assaulted. It was also stated that the alleged assault took place at the CM’s residence where the 11 MLAs had a meeting with Anshu Prakash..The Delhi police had charged Kejriwal, Sisodia and others under Sections 186/323/332/342/353/504/506(ii)/120B/109/114/149/34 and 36 of the IPC. The other lawmakers against whom charges were invoked included Amanatullah Khan, Prakash Jarwal, Nitin Tyagi, Rituraj Govind, Sanjeev Jha, Ajay Dutt, Rajesh Rishi, Rajesh Gupta, Madan Lal, Parveen Kumar and Dinesh Mohania.