Kejriwal, Sisodia, 11 others charged in CS assault case

New Delhi: The Delhi police on Monday named chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia as accused in its chargesheet in connection with the alleged assault on chief secretary Anshu Prakash in February.

The chargesheet, which was filed before additional chief metropolitan magistrate Samar Vishal, has also named 11 legislators of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as accused. These include Amanatullah Khan, Prakash Jarwal, Nitin Tyagi, Rituraj Govind, Sanjeev Jha, Ajay Dutt, Rajesh Rishi, Rajesh Gupta, Madan Lal, Parveen Kumar, and Dinesh Mohania.

In its 1,300-page chargesheet, the police has alleged that Mr Kejriwal, Mr 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 him hurt.

It has also accused the AAP leaders of other offences punishable under sections of the 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 chargesheeted for the offence committed under Section 149 of IPC, 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 court has put up the chargesheet for consideration on August 25. If convicted, the accused may get a maximum of 7-year jail term.

On May 18, the Delhi police had questioned Mr Kejriwal for over three hours in connection with the alleged assault on Mr Prakash.

Mr Prakash was allegedly assaulted during a meeting at Mr Kejriwal’s official residence on the night of February 19. The police said that the chief minister was present when the alleged assault took place. The police has already questioned 11 AAP MLAs present at the chief minister’s residence for the meeting.