Delhi government rubbishes charge LG asked to drop cases

New Delhi, Oct 30: The Delhi government on Friday rubbished the charge by Lt. Governor Najeeb Jung's office that it wanted cases against Aam Aadmi Party leaders to be dropped.

In an official statement, the Arvind Kejriwal government accused the LG office of "misleading the public by hiding some important facts" regarding the matter.

"The LG office alleged that (Delhi) Home Minister Satyendra Jain wanted withdrawal of cases registered against some leaders of his party. No minister is involved in this process. Therefore, the LG office has erred in making this allegation," the statement said.

"It is regrettable that the LG office has tried to mislead by not placing the entire facts that compoundable cases against political leaders/workers are never withdrawn by executive orders but through a screening committee," the statement added.

The screening committee comprises Principal Secretary Home, Principal Secretary Law, Joint Commissioner of Police (law and order) and Director of Prosecution.

The cases considered by this committee are generally of political nature and hence related to political demonstrations, agitations and defacement of property, and not serious/heinous crimes.

In a September 4 meeting, of the 34 cases placed before the committee for consideration, 28 were recommended for withdrawal of prosecution and four were rejected. Two cases had already been discharged by the court concerned.

"Out of the 28 cases recommended for withdrawal of prosecution, the LG office focused only on the AAP (leaders)," the government said.

"Prominent names (of leaders) from the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party whose cases were recommended for withdrawal of prosecution include Mukesh Sharma, Vijay Goel, Parvesh Verma, Vijendra Gupta, Harshvardhan, Jagdish Mukhi and Ramesh Bidhuri," it said.

"Therefore, the LG office has made an unsuccessful attempt to divert the attention from the real issue of Om Prakash Chautala's parole," the statement said.

IANS