Delhi chief secretary 'assault': Denied bail by sessions court, AAP MLA Prakash Jarwal moves Delhi HC to seek relief

New Delhi: A day after a sessions court denied him bail, AAP MLA Prakash Jarwal, arrested for allegedly assaulting Delhi chief secretary Anshu Prakash, on Wednesday moved the Delhi High Court seeking the relief. The bail plea is likely to come up for hearing before Justice Mukta Gupta on Thursday. Jarwal was on Tuesday denied bail for the second time with a court saying it could not ignore the fact that the lawmaker had “openly violated the dignity” of a 56-year-old public servant who was “honestly discharging duties”. [caption id=“attachment_4371153” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AAP MLA Prakash Jarwal. Twitter@Prakash_jarwal[/caption] Deoli MLA Jarwal, who was arrested on 20 February, is currently undergoing 14-day judicial custody in the case in which another MLA Amanatullah Khan was also arrested in connection with the alleged assault on the bureaucrat during a meeting at Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s residence on the night of 19 February. The court, while refusing to grant bail to Jarwal, had said the situation could not be more alarming when lawmakers do not respect the rule of law. While dismissing the plea of the MLA, the court had noted that the chief secretary’s allegations were confirmed by his medical report as well as the statement of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s adviser VK Jain, who had claimed that he saw the chief secretary being assaulted by the MLAs. Seeking bail before the sessions court, Jarwal’s counsel had pleaded that the MLA was a young politician and had got married recently on 6 February so he be granted the relief. Opposing the bail plea, Additional Public Prosecutor Atul Shrivastava had argued that it was a serious offence as a top state bureaucrat had been assaulted. The police had also alleged that the CCTV footage taken from the house of the chief minister appears to have been tampered with. A magisterial court had on 23 February refused to grant bail to Khan and Jarwal, in the assault case saying the matter cannot be treated in “a casual and routine manner” while dubbing them as “history-sheeters”. Khan has not yet challenged the magisterial court’s order denying him bail. Both the MLAs were on 22 February sent to 14-day judicial custody by the court. While Jarwal was arrested on 20 February, Khan, an MLA from Okhla, was taken into custody the next day.