Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia among 13 AAP leaders summoned in Delhi chief secretary assault case

The Patiala House Court on Tuesday issued summons to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and 11 other AAP MLAs who were named in the chargesheet filed by the Delhi Police in the assault case of chief secretary Anshu Prakash. 

According to the summons, the 13 AAP leaders have to appear before the court on October 25. Prakash was allegedly assaulted during a meeting at Kejriwal's official residence on February 19 night. 

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal issued summons after taking cognisance of the charge sheet filed by the Delhi Police on August 13. The court said there were sufficient grounds to establish the charges against the accused in the case. 

The charge sheet has also named 11 legislators of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) -- Amanatullah Khan, Prakash Jarwal, Nitin Tyagi, Rituraj Govind, Sanjeev Jha, Ajay Dutt, Rajesh Rishi, Rajesh Gupta, Madan Lal, Parveen Kumar and Dinesh Mohania as accused. 

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In August, the police stated in the chargesheet that the midnight meeting held by the chief minister, where the assault is said to have taken place, was the first one in three years. The document also alleges that only six out of 21 CCTV cameras at the chief minister's office were functioning.

The Delhi Police have also alleged that the wires of the rest of the CCTVs were "deliberately disconnected and tampered with".

 The court had on August 25, reserved the order while rejecting a plea moved by Kejriwal, his deputy and other AAP MLAs seeking to restrain police from sharing with the media information on the charge sheet in the case. The court had said it needed time to go through the 1,300-page charge sheet, in which the police had alleged that Kejriwal, Sisodia and others had criminally conspired to threaten the chief secretary with death or grievous hurt, obstructed him in discharging his public function and caused hurt. 

The charge sheet had also accused the AAP leaders of other offences punishable under sections of IPC, including wrongfully confining any person, assaulting or using criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of duty, insulting him to provoke breach of peace and abetment of the offence. They were also charged for offence committed under IPC section 149, which says if an offence is committed by any member of an unlawful assembly, every other member of such assembly shall be held guilty of the offence. 

The Delhi Police had on May 18 questioned Kejriwal for over three hours in connection with the case. Two of the party MLAs -- Amantullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal -- were arrested in the case. The alleged assault had triggered a bitter tussle between the Delhi government and its bureaucrats. 

(With PTI inputs)