More Trouble for Kejriwal: Court Directs Police to File FIR in Public Fund Misuse Case
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Mar 11: Ousted from power in the Assembly elections last month, including losing his own New Delhi seat which he had held for three consecutive terms, more trouble seems to await the Aam Aadmi Party chief and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal with a Delhi court on Tuesday directing the police to file an FIR against him in a six year old case of alleged misuse of public funds in putting up advertising hoardings.
Mr Kejriwal is currently out on bail in a case related to the alleged Delhi liquor policy scam. Hearing a petition seeking cases against Mr Kejriwal and two other leaders, Gulab Singh and Nitika Sharma, the Rouse Avenue Court directed the Delhi Police to register the FIR and asked for a compliance report by March 18. The case dates back to 2019 and a lower court had earlier refused to allow the petition.
“This court is of the considered opinion that the application u/s 156(3) Cr.P.C. deserves to be allowed. Accordingly, the concerned SHO is directed to register FIR immediately under section 3 of Delhi Prevention of Defacement of Property Act, 2007 and any other offence that appears to have been committed from the facts of the case,” Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Neha Mittal said.
The complaint filed in 2019 alleged that Mr Kejriwal, then Matiala MLA Gulab Singh (AAP) and then Dwarka A ward councillor Nitika Sharma “deliberately misused public money by putting up large-sized hoardings” at various places in the area.
Mr Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia spent months in jail after Delhi LG VK Saxena ordered an FIR over alleged corruption in granting licenses under the new excise policy. The policy was later scrapped. The CAG report on the Delhi liquor scam also claimed that the 2021-2022 excise policy framed by the previous AAP government resulted in a cumulative loss of over ₹2000 crore to the national capital’s exchequer.
Last week, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva alleged massive corruption in the AAP government-run ‘Mohalla Clinics’ and accused former health minister Satyendar Jain and Kejriwal of running “shops of corruption” in the name of free healthcare.
Sachdeva’s reaction came after AAP senior leader Jain, in a press conference, strongly criticised the reported plan of the BJP government in Delhi to shut down 250 ‘Mohalla Clinics.’ Bottom of Form
“AAP leaders accuse us of shutting down their clinics, but the reality is that we are shutting down their corruption shops,” Mr Sachdeva said.
In the over 10 years that the AAP was in power in Delhi, the BJP had repeatedly accused the party of misusing public money for its own publicity. In January, last year, the Directorate of Information and Publicity had also asked the AAP to reimburse Rs 163.62 crore, including interest, for allegedly misusing public funds for political advertisements.
Even in January this year, the BJP had alleged that the AAP spent more on publicising some schemes than the money actually allotted for them. It claimed that while Rs 54 crore was allocated to the Business Blasters scheme, Rs 80 crore was spent on promoting it. For the Desh Ke Mentor scheme – which was meant to connect voluntary mentors with students of Classes 9-12 in Delhi government schools – the BJP claimed only Rs 1.9 crore was allotted and Rs 27.9 crore was spent on its publicity. The figures for the Stubble Management scheme were an allotment of Rs 77 lakh against nearly Rs 28 crore spent on promotion. The AAP has denied all the charges.
Mr Kejriwal and the AAP were also in the crosshairs of the BJP for the money spent on the renovation and alleged extravagances at the Delhi chief minister’s bungalow, which the party has derisively termed ‘Sheesh Mahal’, when the AAP chief held the top job in the Delhi government.
The AAP has maintained that the new furnishings and upgrades were necessary as the chief minister’s residence had been built in 1942 and needed a complete overhaul. The party also claimed that the Public Works Department had recommended the changes, but the issue is seen as having cost Mr Kejriwal and the party dear in the Delhi Assembly elections.
From over 60 seats in the 70-member Assembly in 2019, the AAP was reduced to just 22 while the BJP won 48, forming a government in Delhi after a gap of 26 years. The knockout blow was delivered by Parvesh Verma of the BJP, who defeated Mr Kejriwal from the New Delhi constituency with a margin of over 4,000 votes. In January, the Home ministry also gave its sanction to the Enforcement Directorate to prosecute Mr Kejriwal and his former deputy Manish Sisodia under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in the liquor policy case.
