AAP MLA Manoj Kumar sentenced to 3 months in jail for obstructing election conduct

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Manoj Kumar has been sentenced to three months in jail for obstructing the election process during the Delhi Assembly elections of 2013. A special MP-MLA fast track court in Delhi had convicted him on June 11.

Manoj Kumar had been found guilty of obstructing the election process at a polling station in Kalyanpuri in East Delhi. The court had convicted him for the offence under provisions against preventing government officials from carrying out their duty, and for disorderly conduct in the vicinity of polling stations.

The court also fined Kumar Rs 10,000. However, it granted him bail to allow him to challenge the conviction in a higher court if he wished to do so.

A case had been filed against Kumar, who was then the AAP candidate, of leading 50 protestors to demonstrate outside the main gate of an MCD school which was being used as a polling station. The case said the protest had caused inconvenience to voters.

The complaint had claimed that Kumar and his band of protestors had held a sit-in protest outside the polling station, blocking officials from taking the EVMs out of the school when polling was completed.

This is not Manoj Kumar's first run in with the law. He had in 2015 been accused of fraud in a land purchase deal. The allegations pertained to the period before his entry into politics, when he reportedly worked as a property dealer.