Chief secy assault case: Court summons Kejriwal, 12 AAP MLAs on Oct 25

A court on Tuesday issued summons to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia and 11 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs as accused in an alleged assault on Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal accepted the charge sheet and asked all 13 to appear before the court on October 25.

The Delhi Police in August chargesheeted Kejriwal, Sisodia, Amanatullah Khan, Prakash Jarwal, Nitin Tyagi, Rituraj Govind, Sanjeev Jha, Ajay Dutt, Rajesh Rishi, Rajesh Gupta, Madan Lal, Parveen Kumar and Dinesh Mohania.

The accused have been chargesheeted under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for voluntarily causing hurt and obstructing a public servant to deter him/her from doing duty, wrongful confinement and assault.

They have also been accused of insult with intent to provoke breach of peace, criminal intimidation, criminal conspiracy, punishment of abetment and unlawful assembly among others.

The AAP has called the case a "midnight conspiracy to defame the Delhi Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister and 11 MLAs in a false and laughable case".

The Delhi Chief Secretary in February had alleged that he was beaten up by AAP MLAs in the presence of Kejriwal at the Chief Minister's residence on the night of February 19 where he had been called for a late-night meeting.

The case was filed the next morning and Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal were arrested and sent to judicial custody. Later, they were released on bail.