AAP MLA charged with helping man flee police custody let off

A Delhi court acquitted Sukhbir Singh Dalal, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from Mundka, along with two others in a 2015 case wherein he was charged with helping an accused escape police custody.

The court said the case of “the prosecution has no leg to stand on”.

The case dates to July 2015, when the Maharashtra Police came to Delhi to arrest Rohtash Tomar, a man accused of stealing 21 metric tonnes of plastic granules worth “lakhs of rupees”.

The Maharashtra Police had brought him to Nangloi police station in Delhi for interrogation. The police told the court that Dalal, an AAP MLA, came to the police station along with 30 to 40 supporters and started pressuring the police to release the accused.

Around 1.30am on the intervening night of July 8- 9, when the Maharashtra Police was leaving with co-accused Khan and Rohtash Tomar, Dalal along with his supporters took away Tomar from their custody.

The case of the police, however, fell flat when they failed to explain the delay of 43 days in the registration of FIR, lack of effort from the police to arrest all three accused right away and their contradictory narrative of whether Tomar was forcibly taken away or whether he slipped away in the chaos.

Additional chief metropolitan magistrate Samar Vishal acquitted Dalal, Tomar and one Rajesh who along with Dalal was accused of helping Tomar escape.

The judge also pulled up the police for an “unreasonable delay” of 43 days in filing the FIR, which the court said, “has completely destroyed the case of the prosecution”.

The court noted that the evidence “which completely falsified the case of the prosecution” was the daily diary entry recorded by the police which shows that “Tomar had joined the investigation and was handed over to accused Sukhbir Singh Dalal”. As per the diary entry, Tomar was directed to come again to the police station on the next day.

“After the four years of harassment that I have faced at the hand of corrupt police officials who made out a false case against me, the court’s order has completely restored my faith in judiciary. But I demand departmental action against the SHO who lodged this case against me,” MLA Dalal said.

First Published:
Jul 10, 2019 06:05 IST

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