AAP MLA to face trial for ‘rioting, assault’

Charges framed; MLA pleads not guilty

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A Delhi court on Wednesday framed charges against AAP MLA Som Dutt in a rioting and assault case registered during the 2015 Delhi Assembly elections.

Metropolitan Magistrate Ruby Neeraj Kumar framed charges against the Sadar Bazar MLA after he pleaded not guilty and claimed trial. The court framed charges for offences of rioting, wrongful restraint, voluntarily causing grievous hurt and unlawful assembly under the Indian Penal Code.

‘Said no to campaigning’

“Keeping in view the legal principles and facts and circumstances of the case put forward by the prosecution and from the statements of the witnesses recorded, in my view, prima facie a case is made out against the accused,” the Magistrate said. The court later fixed July 27 as the date for recording of prosecution evidence.

The Gulabi Bagh police in north Delhi had registered a case against the MLA on a complaint by Sanjeev Rana that he, along with about 50 of his supporters, had come to his house while campaigning in the area, and when he objected to it the MLA hit him on the legs with a baseball bat and his supporters dragged him out onto the road and beat him up.

Counter FIR filed

But counsel for the MLA denied the prosecution charges, submitting that the MLA and his supporters were peacefully campaigning, and it was the complainant who started quarrelling with his client in an inebriated condition. A counter FIR had been lodged by his client, the counsel for the MLA added.