Swati Maliwal ‘assault’ case: Delhi HC reserves order on Bibhav Kumar’s plea challenging his arrest

New Delhi [India], July 8 (ANI): The Delhi High Court on Monday reserved the order on a plea by Arvind Kejriwal’s close aide Bibhav Kumar seeking direction to declare his arrest by Delhi Police as illegal.

The bench of Justice Neena Bansal Krishna after hearing both sides at length decided to reserve the order.

Appearing for Bibhav, Senior Advocate N Hariharan submitted that the FIR was registered after a delay of three days.

“He’s picked up illegally without being served notice u/s 41A from CM’s residence. I (Bibhav Kumar) put an anticipatory bail plea, while around 4:00-4:30 it is being heard, I am arrested around 4:15. If the arrest is happening in such a fashion then the court must intervene. My fundamental right to be arrested in such a fashion was exploited and hence, I am here. You flouted the 41A procedure,” the Advocate said.

“Section 41A mandates police to issue notice to the person accused of committing an offence before arrest without a warrant. There no urgency of arrest and till 18th he did not move. 16th, the FIR was registered. He was picked up at a time when Kumar apprised them that he was ready to cooperate with the investigation. Police picked him up at 12 and till 4:15 there was no news of arrest. On the day when they registered the case, the IO seized all the electronic evidence and the entire record. In the interregnum 16/17th— the forensics team…How can I tamper with the evidence on 18th? There was no necessity to arrest me when I had agreed to cooperate with the investigation,” he added.

Senior Advocate and former Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain for Delhi Police submitted that the arrest memo contained the reasons for arrest but even grounds of arrest in the remand application were supplied to him. Information regarding his arrest was given to his wife.

The accused’s lawyer was there to oppose the bail and remand.

“The appointment of the petitioner was co-terminus with the CM. There was material against him based on which the LG terminated his services. He was not arrested in haste. Had he been arrested in haste, the police would’ve arrested him in Bombay. When the police went on to the site on the 17th he was there. On 17th police and an officer of additional DCP had visited, it was found on the 17th that certain video recordings were missing, the telephone was formatted, video recording leaked to the media was also missing. Based on all this, the investigating officer decided to arrest him. Portraying as we are some villain,” the Delhi Police lawyer said.

“We are the custodians and we are doing our duty. When he was being investigated it was seen that he had taken his mobile phone in Bombay and he formatted his mobile phone and this amounted to tampering of evidence and a case of making an attempt of tampering with the evidence,” the Lawyer stated.

There was positive evidence available and there were material circumstances pointing out towards the justifiability of arrest, the lawyer added.

Bibhav Kumar was arrested by the Delhi Police on May 18, in connection with a FIR registered by Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal assault case.

Bibhav through his plea also sought appropriate compensation for his alleged illegal arrest, in deliberate and blatant violation of the provisions of law. The Departmental Action must be initiated against the unknown erring officials, who were involved in the decision making viz. the arrest of the Petitioner, stated the plea.