Assault case: Anshu Prakash revision plea against Arvind Kejriwal's discharge without merit, says Delhi Court

A Special MP/MLA Court on Wednesday dismissed the revision petition moved by former Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash challenging the order of the magistrate court discharging Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, and others and said, "the revision plea is without merits and the same is dismissed."

The criminal case was related to the alleged assault of Anshu Prakash during a meeting at Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal's official residence on February 19, 2018, and he had later challenged the trial court order, contending that it erred in its judgement discharging the politicians in the case.

Additional Sessions Judge and Special Judge Geetanjali Goel on Wednesday said the Trial Court had rightly discharged Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Rajesh Rishi, Nitin Tyagi, Praveen Kumar, Ajay Dutt, Sanjeev Jha, Rituraj Govind, Rajesh Gupta, Madan Lal and Dinesh Mohania and further correctly did not charge Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal for the offences under Sections 342/506/120-B/109/114 of IPC.

There is no infirmity, illegality or perversity or impropriety in the impugned order passed by the Trial Court and the same has been passed after considering the material on record including the statements of witnesses. Applying the test for framing of the charge laid down in a catena of decisions, no ground has been made out by the petitioner for interfering with the order of the Trial Court, said the sessions judge.

The Court further said that it is the settled law that at the stage of framing of charge, the court is only to see if there is a strong suspicion that the accused had committed an offence and not whether the material on record would lead to conviction or not.

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. In the present case, the Trial Court had duly applied the said yardsticks and the parameters laid down by the Supreme Court.

The revision petition of the former Delhi Chief Secretary stated that the trial Court had erroneously discharged 11 accused persons of all the charges and ordered framing of charges only under Sections 186/332/353/323/34 IPC against two accused persons Amanatulla and Prakash Jarwal.

The plea stated that the order is against the settled principles of law applied at the stage of framing of charge and a perusal of the order revealed that the Trial Court had conducted a fishing and roving enquiry into the allegations in the charge-sheet and had drawn erroneous inferences and conclusions without having the benefit of examination of prosecution witnesses and many such inferences and findings were contrary to the record.

"It is submitted that the Trial Court had committed an error apparent on the face of the record by wrongly accepting the version set up by the accused persons while ignoring and disregarding the entire case of the prosecution and the vital material collected during the course of the investigation including statements of witnesses under Section 161 Cr.P.C," said the plea.

It further said, "The Trial Court had failed to consider the case which emerged by simply juxtaposing and considering the entire sequence of relevant events and the conduct of the accused persons prima facie made out sufficient grounds for framing of charges against the accused persons."

"It is averred that the Trial Court had failed to appreciate that offences under Sections 342/506(ii)/120-B/109 and 114 IPC were also made out against accused persons A-1 and A-2 based on the record including the statement of complainant/ petitioner and the medical records and charge under Section 149 IPC was also made out against all the accused persons," the plea added.

( With inputs from ANI )