[Vandalism outside Arvind Kejriwal residence] Delhi High Court grants bail to eight accused

The Delhi High Court has granted bail to eight men who were arrested by the Delhi Police for their alleged involvement in vandalisation of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s house..Single-judge Justice Asha Menon held that five of the accused are in their twenties and their continued detention in judicial custody is not required for the proper investigation in the case.“The evidence collected so far are of such a nature that the applicants cannot tamper with it. Others who had been identified in the photos have been issued notices under Section 41A Cr.P.C and are also participating in the investigations. Thus, the continued custody of the applicants in jail is not called for only because some investigations are still going on,” the Court said..Sunny, Raju Kumar Singh, Neeraj Dixit, Pradeep Kumar Tiwari, Naveen Kumar, Bablu Kumar Singh, Chandrakant Bhardwa and Jitender Singh Bisht were members of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) who were involved in vandalization of Kejriwal’s house for his remarks on Kashmiri Pandits during his speech in the Delhi Assembly.They were arrested by Delhi Police on March 30 and charged with sections 186, 188, 353, 332, 143, 147, 149 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) along with Section 3 of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act..The Judge noted that though the First Information Report (FIR) records that initially the protesting members of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) gathered outside the IP College and that as the crowd swelled, they started moving forward but, significantly, there is no mention of any weapon or arms or any call for violence.“The FIR merely states that the applicants jumped the barricades. It is also stated that the police sought to reason with them but they did not listen to the police and kept moving towards the CM Residence. There is reference to jostling, during which some policemen have received injuries. Four policemen stated to be injured are not hospitalised. Their MLCs have also been collected, only the opinion in respect of two policemen, is awaited,” the Court observedJustice Menon said that there are no allegations of damage to public property through arson and fire or other means on a scale that would clearly be a far more serious matter than what has been alleged.Court also rejected the State’s argument that there was a fear of repetition of the offence because a tweet was made by a Member of Parliament of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) threatening not to spare the Chief Minister of Delhi till he apologised for the comments made by him in the Floor of the House.It said that it is far-fetched to claim that a repeat offence would occur because of a tweet and therefore, there is no material on which any Police Officer could be satisfied that the applicants were required to be prevented from committing any further offence..Earlier, a Delhi court had denied bail to these eight men holding that it prima facie appeared that the accused were among those who had damaged public property and caused injury to the police officials.A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court has also asked the Delhi Police to furnish a report in sealed cover with regard to its investigation into the vandalism.This came after AAP MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj filed a petition seeking a probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the incident..[Read Order]