A Delhi court convicted AAP MLAs Akhilesh Pati Tripathi from Model Town and Sanjeev Jha from Burari after the duo were found guilty of being a part of the mob that attacked policemen at Burari Police Station in 2015.
The order was passed on September 7 and rendered by Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Vaibhav Mehta. The magistrate convicted MLAs Akhilesh Pati Tripathi, Sanjeev Jha and other accused persons after concluding that they sloganeered and instigated a mob that had attacked the police personnel.
“This court is of the view that the prosecution has been able to establish that both the accused persons, namely Sanjeev Jha and Akhilesh Pati Tripathi, were present at the spot when the crowd turned violent and, in fact, had played a major role in provoking and instigating the crowd,” the order read.
The incident occurred on the night of February 20, 2015, when a mob purportedly attacked the police personnel at Burari Police Station and damaged property on the premises.
The court relied on the 24 witnesses to buttress the prosecution's arguments by submitting statements that were consistent. However, they pointed out that the defence relied on 14 witnesses to prove their innocence but all had serious inconsistencies in the testimony. The court further held that the prosecution's case was strong and clear.
The magistrate noted that the prosecution was successful in proving beyond doubt that both prime accused were a part of the unlawful assembly. In fact, the magistrate said that both AAP leaders had instigated the mob to resort to violence.
Besides, the two men were stated to have provoked the mob as a part of a “common object of the unlawful assembly” in order to “teach police officials a lesson and to overawe the police by force”.
The judgment, however, acquitted 10 other accused persons in the case at hand.
They were found guilty of offences under Sections 147 (rioting), 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions) and 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of an offence committed in prosecution of common object) of the Indian Penal Code but acquitted of criminal intimidation and damaging property charges.
The judge, on Monday, noted that the duo — Akhilesh Pati Tripathi and Sanjeev Jha — did not only join the mob who clashed with police, but were leading the crowd. Also, they have been charged with section 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty) for harbouring police officials to discharge their duties.
The court will hear the case on the quantum of sentence on September 21.