HC grants bail to AAP MLA Som Dutt in assault case

The Delhi High Court on Monday granted bail to AAP MLA Som Dutt, who was recently taken into custody to serve a six-month jail term for assaulting a man with a baseball bat during campaigning for 2015 Assembly elections.

Justice Suresh Kait also sought response of the State on the plea of Dutt, lodged in Rohini jail here, challenging the trial court's verdict convicting and sentencing him in the case.

The high court listed the matter for hearing on October 30.

Senior advocate Vikas Pahwa and lawyer R Arunadhri Iyer contended that the entire case against the legislator is "false" and there are "discrepancies" in the medical record of the man who had claimed that he was assaulted by the MLA.

A sessions court had on September 12 dismissed the AAP leader's plea challenging a magisterial court's order convicting and sentencing him in the case.

The sessions court had said there was no sufficient ground to interfere with the order of the magisterial court.

The magisterial court had on July 4 sentenced Dutt to a six-month jail term and also imposed a fine of Rs two lakh on him.

He is a public representative and has committed the offence knowing its gravity and consequences, the trial court had said.

It had noted that the incident did not take place on the spur of the moment but was a premeditated assault by a baseball bat.

The court had granted him bail on a personal bond and surety of Rs 10,000 till August 5, 2019 for appealing against the conviction.

Dutt, the legislator from the Sadar Bazar constituency, was held guilty under sections 325 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt without provocation), 341 (wrongful restraint), 147 (rioting) and 149 (unlawful assembly ) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The trial court while convicting him had said there was no doubt that on January 10, 2015 at around 8 pm, Som Dutt, along with his 50 supporters, went to flat No. 13 where the complainant was present.

The complainant was beaten and assaulted by the accused and his associates due to which he suffered grievous injury, it had said.

An FIR was lodged against Dutt in 2015 at the Gulabi Bagh police station in north Delhi that he had allegedly hit the complainant on his legs with a baseball bat and his supporters dragged him out on the road and started beating him, causing grievous injury.