A Delhi court today dismissed a plea by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's brother-in-law for transfer of a criminal complaint filed against him and the AAP chief in the alleged PWD scam to another court, saying it was "not maintainable".
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Satish Kumar Arora junked the application of Kejriwal's relative Surender Kumar Bansal, saying the criminal complaint against him and the chief minister is still at the stage of consideration before a metropolitan magistrate and no FIR has been lodged till date.
The court also refused to allow Bansal's oral plea to adjourn the matter till tomorrow as the main counsel was busy in some other case.
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"There is no ground to adjourn the proceedings as the present application is per se not maintainable. The matter being still at the stage of consideration under section 156 CrPC and admittedly no FIR has been registered by any agency till date, the present application is dismissed," the CMM said and sent back the case file to the magisterial court.
A criminal complaint has been filed by the founder of the Roads Anti-Corruption Organisation (RACO) Rahul Sharma and its general secretary Viplav Awasthy seeking a direction to police to lodge an FIR against Kejriwal and Bansal, who is the proprietor of a construction firm, and a public servant for alleged corruption.
Bansal sought transfer of the complaint from the court of Metropolitan Magistrate Abhilash Malhotra who has already directed the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police to file a status report on its enquiry into the matter.
He had said the complaint was earlier allocated to the magistrate concerned as the complainant claimed that it pertained to the IP Estate police station. But now the matter is being enquired into by police station EOW, Mandir Marg and the magistrate concerned has no jurisdiction over it and hence the case be transferred, his plea had said.
It had said under the CrPC, a magisterial court cannot pass directions to any police officer beyond its territorial jurisdiction.
During the hearing, advocate Kislay Pandey, who appeared for complainant Sharma, argued that Bansal has no locus standi to file the application at this stage as no directions has yet been passed for lodging FIR in the matter. He said the transfer plea was nothing but a delaying tactic.
The complainant's counsel claimed that Sharma and Awasthi were being harassed and their life has become miserable since the time they filed the complaint and that the RACO's secretary was badly beaten up a few days ago.
The EOW has already filed a report before the magistrate seeking time to conclude its enquiry into allegations of irregularities in grant of contracts for roads and sewer lines in the city.
The complaint has alleged that there was a "deep-rooted corruption" in the matter and said the documents showed no material was actually purchased for executing the projects.
