In the case of Anshu Prakash v. State of NCT Delhi & Ors, the Special Court in Delhi bench comprising Special Judge Geetanjli Goel upheld discharge of Delhi Chief Minister (CM) Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia, and other Aam Aadmi Party members in an alleged case of assault on former Delhi Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash in 2018.
When deciding on a revision plea, the court noted that the trial court had considered the accusations and, after finding them to be without merit, discharged them altogether while stating its reasons.
After allegedly manhandling Prakash, who was then the Chief Secretary of Delhi, the Delhi police booked 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.
The Court stated that “established law” dictated that at the time of charge framing, the court must only consider whether there was a strong suspicion of the accused committing an offence, rather than whether the evidence on file would lead to a conviction.
Amanatullah Khan, Prakash Jarwal, Nitin Tyagi, Rituraj Govind, Sanjeev Jha, Ajay Dutt, Rajesh Rishi, Rajesh Gupta, Madan Lal, Parveen Kumar, and Dinesh Mohania were among the other legislators charged.
A magistrate court released everybody but MLAs Amantullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal in the case on August 11, 2021.
Prakash appealed the lower court’s decision to the Sessions Court, claiming that the trial court had erroneously freed 11 accused from all charges while directing the drafting of charges only against Amanatullah Khan and him for specific offences.
The trial court, it was alleged, did not investigate all of the witnesses’ claims and thereby committed a “miscarriage of justice” by “essentially not believing” his account.
The alleged assault on Prakash, according to the prosecution, was a “unfortunate and disgraceful” episode in which a senior officer was illegally intimidated and beaten. The alleged assault allegedly occurred at the CM’s residence, when the 11 MLAs were meeting with Anshu Prakash.
Judge Goel, on the other hand, found that the petitioner had provided no grounds for interfering with the judgement or for directing the framing of charges against the 11 respondents in addition to 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 Court Ordered
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