Delhi court upholds order discharging CM Kejriwal, Dy CM Sisodia in assault case

The case pertains to the alleged assault on Prakash during a meeting at Kejriwal’s official residence on February 19, 2018. Prakash had alleged that he was called for a meeting at Kejriwal’s residence on the intervening night of February 19 and 20, 2018, and was allegedly assaulted by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs when they questioned him over a delay in publishing TV advertisements.

The magistrate court had on August 11 last year given a clean chit to Kejriwal, his deputy and nine other AAP MLAs in the case, saying no prima facie case was made out against them. It had, however, ordered framing of charges against AAP MLAs Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Narwal in the case.

Prakash’s lawyers had urged the court to set aside the magistrate court’s order stating that it erroneously discharged the accused persons.

“A bare perusal of the impugned order reveals that the trial court has conducted a fishing and roving enquiry into the allegations in the chargesheet, and has drawn erroneous inferences and conclusions without having the benefit of examination of the prosecution witnesses. Many such inferences and findings are also contrary to the record,” the revision petition stated.

It further alleged that the magistrate court had committed an error apparent on the face of record by wrongly accepting the version set up by accused persons while ignoring and disregarding the entire case of the prosecution and the vital material collected during the course of investigation including statements of witnesses under Section 161 (examination by police) CrPC.