Plea to prosecute Kejriwal, Bharti not maintainable: Del Govt

Delhi government today claimed in High Court that a plea seeking sanction to prosecute Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and ex-law minister Somnath Bharti for alleged anarchy created by the ruling AAP during a 2014 protest against some police officials was not "maintainable".
"This is a frivolous petition moved by a private person. This type of petition should not be entertained as it is not maintainable," Delhi government's counsel told Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva.
The counsel further submitted that "sanction to prosecute respondent 3 and 4 (Kejriwal and Bharti) cannot be granted on a request of any private person".
Delhi government's additional standing counsel Santosh Kumar Tripathi further said this was a civil writ petition and such a direction can only be sought by way of a criminal writ petition.

"On the above ground itself the writ petition should be dismissed," the counsel said, adding that the petitioner will also have to establish whether any offence was committed by the respondents by doing so on January 21, 2014.
The government was responding to the plea filed by Delhi resident Ajay Gautam, who has alleged that Kejriwal and Bharti had violated law of the land by staging a dharna and defying Section 144 of CrPC near Rail Bhawan on January 21, 2014.

Gautam argued that the general public suffered due to the
protest, alleging that Kejriwal and his party workers also tried to put his life in danger by trying to provoke him through an SMS to join the protest against Delhi Police in an area where section 144 of CrPC had already been imposed.

The protest came after Kejriwal's meeting on January 17, 2014 with then Union Home Minister demanding suspension of three SHOs of Delhi Police, primarily for disobeying then Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti's orders to search the premises of some Ugandan women whom he had accused of running a drug and prostitution racket, his petition had alleged.
The petitioner has said he approached the high court after the trial court and the city government failed to pass any order in relation to his pleas for prosecuting both and grant of sanction for it.