HC stays AAP MLA Somnath Bharti’s conviction, jail term; grants him bail

The Delhi high court on Wednesday suspended the two-year jail term awarded to AAP MLA Somnath Bharti in a case of assault on AIIMS security staff in 2016, and granted him bail in the case.

Justice Suresh Kait, while staying Bharti’s conviction in the case, also sought response of the Delhi government on his plea challenging his conviction and the sentence.

Bharti, an Aam Aadmi Party MLA from Malviya Nagar, was taken into custody and sent to prison on Tuesday after pronouncement of the verdict by a trial court.

In his plea before the high court a day later, Bharti sought setting aside of the trial court’s order and acquittal from all charges.

On Tuesday, the court had upheld January verdict by a magistrate that convicted Bharti for unlawful assembly. The court though had set aside Bharti’s conviction under section 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) and section 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

According to the prosecution, on September 9, 2016, Bharti, along with nearly 300 others, brought down the fence of a boundary wall at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) with a JCB machine.

In his plea, Bharti has said that there is no evidence and the judgment of March 23 of the Special Judge has been passed relying upon conjectures and surmises based upon the totally false and fabricated story of the prosecution foisting erroneously the guilt upon the petitioner.

“That the prosecution has miserably failed to prove guilt of the petitioner beyond reasonable doubt to substantiate the charges…That there is no iota of evidence which can be attributed to the petitioner in the instant case attracting ingredients of offence u/s 3 of The Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984 and u/s 147 IPC r/w sec149 IPC,” the plea read.

“Further, the case of the prosecution is full of improvements, embellishments, contradictions and is unworthy of reliance and will fall like a pack of cards just by the stroke of the sheer hand of providence by this court,” the plea added.

The matter will now be heard on May 20.