"No illegality:" Delhi court upholds discharge of Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia in Chief Secretary assault case

In what came as a big relief for Delhi Chief Minister (CM) Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia and other Aam Aadmi Party members, a Special Court in Delhi on Wednesday upheld their discharge in an alleged case of assault on the former Delhi Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash in 2018 [Anshu Prakash v. State of NCT Delhi & Ors]..Special Judge Geetanjli Goel, while deciding a revision plea, noted that the trial court had considered the charges, and upon finding them groundless discharged all of them while recording its reasons.“There is no infirmity, illegality or perversity or impropriety in the order passed by the trial court and the same has been passed after considering the material on record including the statements of witnesses,” the Court held..The Court observed that “settled law” stipulated that at the stage of framing of charge, the court has to only to see if there was any strong suspicion of the accused committing an offence and not if the material on record would lead to conviction.“At the stage of framing of charge, the court is required to evaluate the material and documents only to the extent and with a view to finding out if the facts taken on their face value disclosed the existence of a prima facie case,” it added..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 Indian Penal Code after they allegedly manhandled Prakash, who was then the Chief Secretary of Delhi. 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.On August 11, 2021, a magistrate court had discharged all except 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 Indian Penal Code (IPC) is made out against the accused persons namely Amanatullah Khan (A-1) and Prakash Jarwal (A-2)," Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sachin Gupta had held on August 11.This was challenged by Prakash before Sessions Court. .He contended that the trial court had erroneously discharged 11 accused persons of all the charges, while ordering framing of charge only against Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal for certain offences..It was argued 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 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.Judge Goel, however, held that no grounds were put forth by the petitioner for either interfering with the order or for directing framing of charges against the 11 respondents besides directing framing of charges against Khan and Jarwal for the offences under Sections 342, 506(ii), 120-B, 109 and 114 IPC."The revision petition is accordingly without merits and the same is dismissed," the order said..[Read Judgment]