Former chief secretary Anshu Prakash on Tuesday told a Delhi court that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia were the "kingpins" of a conspiracy that led to him being assaulted in 2018.
Mr Prakash made the submission during the hearing of an appeal filed by him against a trial court decision to discharge Mr Kejriwal, Mr Sisodia and nine other Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs in the case.
The criminal case relates to the alleged assault on Mr Prakash during a meeting at Mr Kejriwal's official residence on February 19, 2018.
Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, appearing for Mr Prakash, told Special Judge Geetanjli Goel that the trial court erred in its judgment of discharging the politicians in the case.
He also said that the AAP government did not allow the Delhi Police to file a revision petition against the trial court order, despite a written request by the probe agency.
"(Mr) Kejriwal and (Mr) Sisodia were the kingpins of the conspiracy, wherein 11 specific MLAs were called at the Chief Minister's residence at 12 midnight. The meeting was specifically kept in a drawing room of the Chief Minister, where there were no CCTV cameras and not in the designated meeting room with CCTV cameras," the counsel told the court.
"MLAs were called to be present one hour before to the arrival time of the chief secretary. The meeting was called without any agenda, where officers/ministers concerned with the issue were specifically not called to maintain the secrecy,” he said.
The counsel told the court that the MLAs, including the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister, who were discharged, have changed their stand before the court.
"Now they are accepting the incident of physical assault upon the chief secretary but denying the charges of conspiracy. The Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister and other discharged MLAs are making Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal scapegoats by contending that the trial court has rightly framed the charges against the two MLAs,” he told the court.
The trial court had discharged Mr Kejriwal, Mr Sisodia and other AAP MLAs - Rajesh Rishi, Nitin Tyagi, Praveen Kumar, Ajay Dutt, Sanjeev Jha, Rituraj Govind, Rajesh Gupta, Madan Lal, and Dinesh Mohania - in the case.
The court had, however, ordered framing of charges against AAP MLAs Mr Khan and Mr Jarwal.
Mr Kejriwal, Mr Sisodia and nine other AAP MLAs were granted bail in October 2018. Mr Khan and Prakash Jarwal were granted bail earlier by the High Court.
The alleged assault had triggered a bitter tussle between the Delhi government and its bureaucrats.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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