NEW DELHI: A special MP/MLA court on Wednesday dismissed an appeal of former chief secretary Anshu Prakash against the discharge of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia in a case related to the alleged assault on the bureaucrat in 2018.
Special Judge Geetanjali Goel upheld a magistrate court’s findings that had discharged Kejriwal, Sisodia, and nine other MLAs in the case. Prakash had filed an application challenging the trial court order and contended that it erred in its judgement discharging the politicians.
The case relates to the alleged assault on Prakash during a meeting at Kejriwal’s official residence in February 2018. The trial court had discharged Kejriwal, Sisodia, and other AAP MLAs — Rajesh Rishi, Nitin Tyagi, Praveen Kumar, Ajay Dutt, Sanjeev Jha, Rituraj Govind, Rajesh Gupta, Madan Lal, and Dinesh Mohania . The court had, however, ordered the framing of charges against AAP MLAs Amantullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal.
Kejriwal, Sisodia, and nine other MLAs were granted bail in October 2018. Amanatullah and Jarwal were granted bail earlier by the high court. The alleged assault had triggered a tussle between the Delhi government and its bureaucrats.
In his appeal, Prakash had called Kejriwal and Sisodia the “kingpins” of a conspiracy, saying he was summoned to Kejriwal’s residence at midnight to discuss the difficulty in releasing advertisements to mark the AAP’s three years in power. He said the assault happened to deter him from doing his duty.
However, the AAP had said the meeting was called to discuss why 2.5 lakh families had not got their rations under the PDS due to faulty implementation of Aadhaar.