Seventeen hours after being arrested for unlawfully assembling outside the Tihar jail in protest against AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal’s custody, senior party leader Yogendra Yadav was released on bail on Thursday by a Delhi court. He said his arrest was illegal as he and others were not informed of promulgation of Section 144 Cr. PC.
Mr. Yadav was released on bail by Metropolitan Magistrate Ekta Gauba, who rejected the police’s plea for remanding him in 14-day judicial custody, after furnishing a personal bond of Rs. 5,000.
Later, to a question from the media on why Mr. Yadav did not insist on furnishing an oral or a written undertaking as per the party’s principle, the former Delhi Law Minister, Somnath Bharti, said, “Since Mr. Yadav was being produced after arrest, he had only two options — either to furnish a bail bond or a personal bond while Mr. Kejriwal appeared before court in pursuance of its summons.”
Appearing for Mr. Yadav, advocate Kamini Jaiswal said, “The custody was a question of how long can they be kept behind bars.”
“False case”
Ms. Jaiswal and senior AAP member Prashant Bhushan said: “The case on the face of it is false. The time of violation of Section 144 is shown to be 4.45 p.m. Mr. Kejriwal was taken into custody at 4.30 p.m. It means in just 15 minutes, there were protests and prohibition of Section 144 outside Tihar and even its violation. How is that possible? Within a minute, so to speak, prohibitory orders were imposed. That is not possible.”
