Criminal complaint against Kejriwal dismissed by court

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had not offered any gratification to voters in the assembly elections last year and no offence of bribery was made out against him, a court here has said while dismissing a criminal complaint seeking his prosecution.

The court's order came while refusing to direct the police to lodge an FIR against Kejriwal for allegedly exhorting voters to take bribe from Congress and BJP and vote for Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the last assembly elections in 2015.

"In the given case, the accused (Kejriwal) has not offered any gratification to the voters for casting votes in favour of his party. He has merely stated that allurements are generally offered by some parties, if offered this time, do not refuse the same but cast vote in favour of his party. He himself has not offered any gratification in lieu of casting votes in favour of his party," Metropolitan Magistrate Babru Bhan said.

"In my considered opinion, no offence is made out against the accused. Hence, the application of the complainant under section 156(3) CrPC and the complaint is hereby dismissed," the magistrate said in the four-page order.

The court passed the order on the complaint of advocate Ikrant Sharma who had alleged that during election campaign in January last year, Kejriwal had abetted the voters of Delhi for accepting illegal gratification from BJP and Congress as a reward for casting their votes.

The court referred to section 171B of the IPC where offence of bribery in relation to elections has been defined which says that accepting either for himself or for any other person any gratification as a reward for exercising any electoral right is an offence of bribery.

It said that for abetment of this offence, a person must instigate a voter to accept the gratification for exercising his electoral right.

"Further, the word 'instigation' has been defined in... section 107 (abetment) of the IPC which says that willful misrepresentation, or willful concealment of a material fact which a person is bound to disclose is to be there.

"Whereas in this case, no such willful misrepresentation or concealment of material fact has been alleged by the complainant," the court said.

The complainant had earlier argued that Kejriwal had allegedly made the statements during his election rallies thrice and even Election Commission has issued notice to him for this.

The court had also called a status report from Sabzi Mandi Police Station in which the officials had said remarks were allegedly made by Kejriwal at a public rally in Uttam Nagar area of West Delhi which does not fall in its jurisdiction and complaint has been transferred to Uttam Nagar Police Station.

In his plea, Sharma has sought lodging of an FIR against Kejriwal for alleged offences including offering or accepting bribe, punishment for bribery and abetment under the IPC.