New Delhi: Out-on-bail AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh has courted yet another controversy by indirectly taking a dig at previous AAP regime in Delhi and his party supremo Arvind Kejriwal albeit in hope of pinning down the Modi government. The recent row pertains to his post on his X (formerly Twitter) handle in which he aimed to target PM Narendra Modi. However, when TFI fact checked his claims, we found that the AAP Rajya Sabha MP has faltered big time and is seemingly acting as a rebel without a cause. Incidentally, Singh has disingenuously shared a “partial” court order to hide key details of the complaint and the court order passed by the ACJM District Court, Rouse Avenue, New Delhi, opening a fresh legal trouble for former Delhi CM Kejriwal.
Notably, in his post, the AAP MP highlighted that a court in Delhi has directed the Police to register an FIR against senior BJP leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and party President JP Nadda among others.
In a sarcastic take, Sanjay Singh further challenged the media to show courage and share the news with the general public. Singh, an accused in the infamous Delhi Liquor Policy scam case, also shared a copy of a complaint and a page of court order, aiming to hail it as a victory in exposing the culpability of PM Modi and HM Amit Shah in a mega scam or illegality of the saffron party.
But, in the desperation to peddle the court order on BJP leaders including PM Modi, Singh not only jumped the gun but also mislead the general public and threw his party Supremo under the bus.
Strikingly, the Upper House has been stern on the principle of transgression, Judicial activism and/or the alleged high-handedness of the Judiciary, especially the lower judiciary. But, in an attempt to corner BJP and PM Modi, Sanjay Singh, a member of the Upper House, only ended up lauding judicial activism against his party Supremo Arvind Kejriwal. In PM Modi’s cynical opposition, Sanjay Singh overlooked the fact that Arvind Kejriwal is the prime accused to be booked in this illegal hoarding case. It may even be a case of internal power tussle with Singh seemingly enjoying Kejriwal’s legal troubles.
The matter of fact is that the ACJM 03 Rouse Avenue District Court, New Delhi of Ms. Neha Mittal directed the concerned Police officer to immediately register an FIR against AAP supremo and former CM Arvind Kejriwal and several others. The FIR is to be based on a complaint alleging violation of the Delhi Prevention of Defacement of Property Act (DPDP) over the issue of illegal Hoardings in Sector -11 DDA Park, Dwarka.
Sanjay Singh hid key case details
On Tuesday, ACJM Neha Mittal directed the concerned SHO to immediately register an FIR under Section 3 of DPDP which deals with the penalty for defacing property in public view.
The ACJM court allowed the application filed by a complaint named Shiv Kumar Saxena under Section 156 (3) of Cr.P.C urging the court to register an FIR. The complainant alleged that in 2019, Kejriwal and other individuals misused public money as they installed huge size hoardings to greet the general public in the city’s Dwarka at crossings and roads, power poles, DDA park boundary wall and other public places.
The complainant has also named MLA Gulab Singh and Nigam Parshad Nitika Sharma as accused. According to the complainant’s allegation, one of the hoardings stated that the Delhi Government will start registration for darshan at Kartarpur Sahib. It had photographs and names of Kejriwal and Gulab Singh.
Similarly, the other hoarding shared greetings of Gurunanak Dev Jayanti and Kartik Purnima and it had the photograph and name of Nigam Parshad Sharma. He also referred to another hoarding which had the pictures of Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, JP Nadda, Parvesh Verma and Ramesh Bidhuri.
As per the ACJM court order, Saxena had also mentioned names of approximately 8-10 persons as accused including PM Modi in the complaint to the DCP but most of the names were omitted from the application seeking registration of FIR.
The complaint had alleged that displaying the hoardings at public property was a clear violation of DPDP Act, 2007 and Saxena had given a written complaint in this matter but no action was taken on his complaint.
In its order, the Court concluded that the act of hanging banner board or affixing hoardings tantamounts to defacement of property under Section 3 of DPDP Act, 2007.
The court stated, “The complainant has placed on record the photographs with date and time stamp to show that hoardings having the names and photographs of the accused persons and other persons have been illegally put up. Section 5 of DPDP Act, 2007 states in express terms that an offence under this Act shall be cognizable.”
According to the court, Saxena had prima facie shown that cognizable offence had been committed.
The judge asserted that the seriousness of the offence punishable can be understood from the fact that it is not only an eyesore and public nuisance destroying the aesthetic sense of the city but is also hazardous and dangerous to the smooth flow of traffic, distracting traffic and posing a safety challenge to the pedestrians and vehicles.
Highlighting risk to human lives from illegal hoardings, the Court said, “Further, the investigating agency cannot be allowed to blow hot and cold as record shows that the delay in the present case took place on account of non-filing of ATR on several dates of hearing despite repeated directions of the court and now, the investigating agency cannot shrug its responsibility by saying that evidence cannot be collected due to lapse of time.”
It is pertinent to note that earlier in 2022, the application in question was dismissed by a magisterial court. Back then, it had observed that field investigation was not required in the case. Subsequently, Saxena filed a revision petition after which the order passed by the magistrate was set aside.
Later, the matter was remanded back to the Trial Court. The directions were to decide the application afresh.
