Maliwal case: Court says Bibhav Kumar's anticipatory bail plea infructuous

High drama unfolded in a court here on Saturday as it gave an urgent hearing to Bibhav Kumar's anticipatory bail plea with a public prosecutor informing it that the Arvind Kejriwal's aide has been arrested in the Swati Maliwal assault case.

Additional Sessions Judge Sushil Anuj Tyagi in Tis Hazari court, who had completed the hearing by 4.40 pm, said he was informed at 4.45 pm that the applicant had been arrested at 4.15 pm and therefore disposed of his petition as infructuous.

Hours before his arrest, Kumar had applied for an urgent hearing of his anticipatory bail plea which was permitted by the principal districts and sessions judge and was marked to Judge Tyagi.

After hearing the arguments by Additional Public Prosecutor (APP) A B Asthana and Kumar's counsel from 3:55 pm to 4:40 pm, the judge said, "At this stage, at about 4:45 pm, APP Atul Srivastava appeared through video conferencing and informed the court that the applicant has already been arrested."

"On court query, the additional public prosecutor for the state submitted that the applicant was arrested at about 4:15 pm," he added.

Objecting to the additional public prosecutor's submissions, Kumar's counsel Rajiv Mohan claimed that they were not informed about the arrest.

The court, however, said that according to Srivastava, Kumar's wife was "duly informed" about the arrest.

"Since the applicant (Kumar) has already been arrested, the present application is disposed of being infructuous," the court said.

Kumar was arrested on Saturday in connection with the alleged assault on AAP MP Swati Maliwal. Kumar was picked up from the chief minister's residence by a Delhi Police team, a day after Maliwal recorded her statement before a magistrate at the Tis Hazari court.

 

 

Earlier in the day, the court had reserved its order on the plea after one of Kumar's counsel, senior advocate N Hariharan, argued that his client was being quashed in a battle between political giants.

Countering Maliwal's allegations, the senior advocate said Kumar had no reason to "abuse" her and the CCTV footage belied her accusations.

Playing some video clips in the court, he said that Maliwal was seen "comfortably" seated and that she had reached Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's residence, without an appointment. A pen drive containing the CCTV footage was also submitted to the judge, who viewed those.

"They (CM's staff) were only requesting her to leave as she did not have an appointment. But by that time, she already called the police. There was a security breach," the senior advocate said.

He also argued that Kumar could not "dare" to do anything to the Rajya Sabha MP and that it could be seen from a clip that she was also walking out comfortably from the place.