Court sends AAP MLA to 14-day judicial custody

A Delhi court on Monday rejected Delhi Police’s demand for police custody of arrested AAP MLA Sharad Chauhan and sent him to fourteen days’ judicial custody. The court pulled up investigation officer for not mentioning page numbers on the case diary and directed the Deputy Commission of Police to appropriate action against him.

“It was open to the investigating officer to have recovered the data and to have confronted the accused persons with the said data during pre arrest interrogation,” said the judge rejecting the demand of police custody of Chauhan. He further observed that the remaining investigation is predicated on documents. “Recovery admittedly is not to be affected and police custody is not being sought for that purpose,” he added.

The judge also denied police custody for Chauhan’s associates Amit Kumar and Rajnikant and sent them all to 14 days’ judicial custody in Tihar Jail. The court pulled up the IO for not mentioning the page number and itself paginated the case diary to avoid any tampering. “The IO has acted in breach of the directions of the court,” observed the judge. The other six accused along with main accused Ramesh Bhardwaj were also produced in the court and were sent to 14 days’ judicial custody too.

Chauhan’s lawyer Pradeep Rana argued in the court that the police do not even have appropriate grounds for arresting his client. 

“Chauhan’s role is limited to dispatch and receipt of some messages through mobile phone application WhatsApp. He was cooperating with the police before arrest,” said Rana.  The police have already recovered devices – mobile and laptop — containing the required data during pre-arrest interrogation.