NEW DELHI: Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel was on Friday sentenced to a six-month jail term by a court for trespassing on the house of a realtor in an East Delhi colony in 2015. While the AAP stated that the order will be challenged in a higher court, the BJP gunned for the Speaker demanding resignation on moral grounds.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal held Goel and four others — Sumit Goel (Speaker’s son), Hitesh Khanna, Atul Gupta and Balbir Singh — guilty, saying the case against them was proved beyond reasonable doubts. “I am of the view that the punishment needs to be deterrent in this case,” the judge said, handing over simple imprisonment for a period of six months and a fine of Rs 1,000 each.
The court, however, granted them bail on a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh to enable them to file an appeal before higher courts against the order of their conviction and the jail term.“The Speaker must quit on moral grounds, Goyal has failed to maintain the dignity of the constitutional post, CM Arvind Kejriwal should be equally held guilty as he elevated MLA charged with criminal offences to the post of Speaker,” said Leader of Opposition and senior BJP leader Vijender Gupta.
According to the FIR, the AAP leader and his supporters had raided one of builder Manish Ghai’s houses in Vivek Vihar on February 6, 2015, a day before the Delhi Assembly elections. Goel had accused Ghai of stashing liquor, blankets and other things for distribution ahead of the polls in the national capital.