Court to consider charge sheet against Bharti on Dec 1

New Delhi, Oct 30: A court here on Friday, Oct 30 fixed December 1 for consideration of the supplementary charge sheet filed by Delhi Police against AAP leader Somnath Bharti in a case of alleged molestation of African women during his purported midnight-raid last year when he was the Law Minister.

The court deferred the matter as Metropolitan Magistrate Ankita Lal, before whom the investigating officer (IO) had filed the supplementary final report, was on leave.

The IO had on October 3 submitted the report while informing the court that prosecution sanction against Bharti has been accorded by the competent authority.

The 22-page report, filed by Investigating Officer (IO) Vijay Chandel, had also annexed Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) report and arrayed FSL director and a scientist as witnesses. Earlier, the police had filed a report on Bharti's plea for further probe in the case in a sealed cover.

On January 16, the court had issued notice to the Deputy Commissioner of Police and given a last chance to IO to get the sanction for prosecution against Bharti expeditiously.

The police said it received the sanction on September 24. In its charge sheet filed on September 27 last year, the police had said that "nine African women were victims of molestation and manhandling by a mob led by Somnath Bharti". Bharti and 17 others have been booked under various sections of the IPC, including 354 (outraging women's modesty), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 147 (rioting).

The police had arrayed 41 people as prosecution witnesses in the case, including nine Ugandan women, who were allegedly beaten up and molested by the mob led by Bharti on the intervening night of January 15-16, 2014.

The police had said, reports of video footage collected from CCTV cameras installed at AIIMS, where the victims were taken for medical check-up, and footage from news channels have been received.

The FIR was lodged on January 19,2014 on court's direction after a Ugandan woman had approached it seeking a direction to police to file a criminal case against unnamed persons. Later, another African woman approached the court seeking registration of a separate FIR alleging that she was also molested by the group.

The court had then asked the police to file status report while refusing to order lodging of a separate FIR on the plea.

However, it had asked the police that the woman be made a co-complainant in the first FIR lodged on January 19 as she was also a victim of the same incident.

PTI