More trouble confronted the Aam Aadmi Party after its West Delhi MLA Jarnail Singh, who is accused of assaulting an MCD engineer, was refused any recourse by the Delhi High Court here on Tuesday.
Instead, the court agreed to hear his anticipatory bail application on Wednesday. The Delhi Police were also directed to file a status report on the incident.
Earlier in the day, Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi told reporters that he hoped Mr. Singh would surrender soon.
“The MLA’s anticipatory bail plea has been rejected. He is currently on the run, but I hope he will surrender at the earliest,” Mr. Bassi said.
The Tilak Nagar MLA had to approach the High Court after a lower court had rejected his application last week. Mr. Singh’s advocate H.S Phoolka said that he had been falsely implicated in the case at the behest of his political rivals. He also said that the only reason the lower court had rejected his anticipatory bail was because he had not been properly represented.
He said that the lower court had not stated any reasons for the rejection of his bail and that the facts of the FIR filed against Mr. Singh were false.
On the day of the incident, Azhar Mustafa , a junior engineer of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation, had alleged that he had gone to the Krishna Park area to demolish an illegal construction when local residents led by the MLA obstructed him.
He had further alleged that the AAP leader, along with others, not only prevented the MCD team from carrying out the demolition , but even assaulted him in public.
He also claimed that the municipal corporation had all the necessary clearances to carry out the demolition, but Mr. Singh tore up the papers when those were shown to him. Subsequently, he registered an FIR against Mr. Singh at the Tilak Nagar police station.
However, Mr. Singh has rubbished the claims made by the engineer. He said that no notice was served on the owner of the property. The MLA had filed a counter complaint against the engineer, it was claimed.
