The application was submitted a day after the Delhi Police filed a chargesheet against CM Arvind Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia and 11 other AAP MLAs.
The Aam Aadmi Party Tuesday filed an application in a Delhi court seeking to restrain the Delhi Police and investigating officer Additional DCP Harendra Singh from giving interviews to the media in connection with the alleged assault on Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash.
The incident took place on the intervening night of February 19-20 at Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s residence, when Prakash was called for a meeting. A case was registered on Prakash’s complaint, who alleged he had been assaulted by AAP MLAs. Two AAP MLAs, Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal, were arrested in connection with the case and later released on bail.
The application was submitted a day after the Delhi Police filed a chargesheet against Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia and 11 other AAP MLAs.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal issued a notice to the Delhi Police and sought a response on the next date of hearing, August 25.
In February, police had lodged a case under eight IPC sections, but added five more sections in the chargesheet filed on Monday. These include criminal conspiracy, unlawful assembly and voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from doing his duty.
The application, filed by AAP’s counsel Mohammad Irshad, stated the matter is fixed for cognizance on August 25. “The court has not taken cognizance of the offence on the basis of the chargesheet filed by the investigating agency so far. The agency, particularly Harender Singh, is selectively leaking excerpts of chargesheet to the media malafidely to assassinate the character of the persons allegedly mentioned in the chargesheet, especially Chief Minister and Deputy CM,” it states.
On Tuesday, Singh gave an interview to a news channel mentioning the names of prosecution witnesses in the case. The application further said: “The IO has no power to leak the contents of the chargesheet to the media selectively… That the act and conduct of the agency is an interference in the administration of justice as their only intention is to create hype in the media to influence the proceedings, so that the image of the CM are adversely affected.”