Assault case: HC seeks former chief secretary Anshu Prakash's stand on plea by AAP MLAs

The two MLAs, against whom charges were directed to be framed by the trial court earlier this year, seek to be impleaded as petitioners in a petition by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia challenging a trial court order permitting special prosecutors to conduct the prosecution on behalf of Delhi Police, instead of a regular public prosecutor.Justice Mukta Gupta issued notice on the application and granted time to the former chief secretary as well as the prosecution to file its response and posted the matter for the next hearing on January 7.

The Delhi High Court Tuesday sought former chief secretary Anshu Prakash's stand on a plea by AAP MLAs Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal concerning the appointment of prosecutors in the alleged assault case of 2018. The two MLAs, against whom charges were directed to be framed by the trial court earlier this year, seek to be impleaded as petitioners in a petition by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia challenging a trial court order permitting special prosecutors to conduct the prosecution on behalf of Delhi Police, instead of a regular public prosecutor.

Justice Mukta Gupta issued notice on the application and granted time to the former chief secretary as well as the prosecution to file its response and posted the matter for the next hearing on January 7. Senior counsel Sanjoy Ghose, appearing for the MLAs, said that his clients wanted to address the court on the legal question raised in the petition, and to avoid multiplicity of proceedings, they should be permitted to be made a party. Senior counsel Sidharth Luthra, representing the complainant IAS officer, stated that given the discharge of the original petitioners – Kejriwal and Sisodia, the case pending before the high court has become infructuous. Senior lawyers N Hariharan and Dayan Krishnan, representing the CM and Deputy CM, said that they had no objections against making the two applicants a party to the proceedings. In the application, the applicants said that any decision taken in the present case would “directly affect the outcome of the prosecution” against them and therefore, in the interest of justice, they should be “impleaded as petitioners”. The criminal case relates to the alleged assault on Prakash during a meeting at Kejriwal's official residence on February 19, 2018. The alleged assault had triggered a bitter tussle between the Delhi government and its bureaucrats. On August 11, Kejriwal and Sisodia were discharged by the trial court in the case on the ground that prima facie no case was made out against them. The trial court, however, ordered framing of charges against Khan and Jarwal, saying that a prima facie case was made out against them to proceed further with the trial.

The court had ordered framing of charges under sections 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC.

On November 1, a sessions court had issued notice to Kejriwal and others on Ashu Prakash's plea challenging their discharge. In the petition before the high court, Kejriwal and Sisodia had challenged the trial court order passed in October 2018, which directed that prosecution in the Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash assault case be conducted by an officer of Delhi Police, not below the rank of ACP.

The trial court, while allowing Anshu Prakash's plea seeking direction to conduct the prosecution through the counsel nominated by the Delhi Police and not through lawyers empanelled by the AAP government, also permitted two advocates to conduct the prosecution on behalf of the officer of Delhi Police, instead of a regular public prosecutor.

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