Court upholds 2-yr jail term for AAP legislator Somnath Bharti
New delhi: A Delhi court on Tuesday upheld the conviction of Aam Aadmi Party legislator Somnath Bharti and sent him to jail for serving an imprisonment of two years in the 2016 AIIMS assault case where he along with a mob broke a fence on the boundary wall with a JCB and assaulted security personnel on duty.
On January 22, a magisterial court had convicted and sentenced Bharti to two years in jail in connection with the case for the offences under sections of Punishment for voluntarily causing hurt, Assault on public servant, Unlawful assembly, among others. Following this Bharti challenged the order before a court on January 28.
However, the court of Special Judge (MP/MLAs cases) Vikas Dhull partly upheld the Bharti's conviction in the case, stating that "Part of the impugned judgment convicting and sentencing the appellant for the offence under Section 323/353 IPC read with Section 149 IPC are accordingly, set aside...appeal is dismissed qua the convention and sentence of appellant u/s 147 IPC read with Section 3 (1) of PDPP Act."
Special Judge Dhull also ruled that the AIIMS security personnel did not come under the category of "public servant" in order to attract Section 353 of IPC (Assault on public servant).
"To attract clause 12 of Section 21 IPC, a person can be a "public servant" if he is in the service of the Government or getting pay or remuneration from the Government for performance of his public duty". The court further stated that the five public witnesses were working as security guards in BIS security company and they were employed as security guards in AIIMS through their contractor i.e., BIS security company, and even the salary was being paid by their contractor".
Section 323 of IPC which pertains to voluntarily causing hurt was also found "not trustworthy" by the court and subsequently dropped as a charge against Bharti.
The court meanwhile observed that the prosecution had proved beyond reasonable doubt that the wall and the fence over it was a public property and the same was damaged by the use of JCB machine by the unlawful assembly, of which Bharti was a member, and therefore the Trial Court had "rightly convicted him for the offence under Section 3(1) of PDPP Act and I do not find any illegality or infirmity in the same".
As per the chargesheet in the case, on September 9, 2016, the Chief Security Officer of AIIMS lodged a complaint stating that Bharti and other persons had attempted to encroach upon government land. He further alleged that Bharti along with around 300 supporters gathered in Gautam Nagar near Nallah Road dead end and started breaking the fence on the boundary wall with a JCB in order to unauthorizedly enter inside the AIIMS property, claiming that the road belonged to the general public.
