AAP MLA convicted for assaulting man during 2015 Assembly poll campaign

A Delhi court has convicted AAP MLA Som Dutt for beating and assaulting a man during the 2015 Assembly election campaign. Additional chief metropolitan magistrate (ACMM) Samar Vishal held Dutt, a legislator from Sadar Bazar constituency here, guilty under section 325 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt without provocation), 341 (wrongful restraint), 147 (rioting) and section 149 (unlawful assembly ) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

"There is no doubt that on January 10, 2015 at around 8 pm, Som Dutt, along with his 50 supporters, went to flat no 13 where the complainant was present. The complainant was beaten and assaulted by the accused and his associates due to which he suffered grievous injury," the court said.

The maximum punishment for causing grievous injury is seven years. The court will pronounce the quantum of sentence on July 4.

The court, however, said the offence of wrongful restraint (Section 341 IPC) is not made out in this case as the complainant was not going anywhere and he was not restrained from proceeding in any direction.

"Further, section 147 of the IPC, which punishes the offence of rioting, is also not made out considering that the intention of accused was only to beat the complainant and no further.

"It is not clear that how many persons apart from the accused had assaulted the complainant and what was their common object, if any," the court said.

An FIR was lodged against Dutt in 2015 at the Gulabi Bagh police station in North Delhi on the allegation that the MLA and around 50 of his supporters, while campaigning in the locality, had come to the house of complainant Sanjeev Rana.

The prosecutor had alleged that when the complainant objected, the MLA allegedly hit him in his legs with a baseball bat and his supporters dragged him out on the road and started beating him, causing grievous injury.

Dutt's counsel had refuted the arguments of the prosecutor saying the MLA and his supporters were peacefully campaigning in the society and it was the complainant who started quarrelling with Dutt in an inebriated state, on which a cross FIR was also registered by the legislator.

The MLA's counsel had also said that Rana has neither named nor identified any other person to charge him for the offence of rioting.

The court has also framed charges against Rana in the cross case filed against him by the MLA for allegedly entering into a scuffle with him and his party members while they were campaigning for the elections.

Dutt had also alleged that while doing so, Rana, in an inebriated state, hurled abuses at women party members and pushed one of the associates towards barbed wires due to which he suffered injury.