NEW DELHI: Aam Aadmi Party leader Saurabh Bharadwaj on Tuesday welcomed an Ahmedabad court’s decision to dismiss a plea for immunity from trial filed by Delhi LG VK Saxena.
The Delhi minister, in a press conference, said that Saxena led a mob that disrupted a peaceful meeting in Sabarmati Ashram in 2002.
Bharadwaj claimed that LG Saxena wrote to the court “that the rank of the LG is above that of the Governor. VK Saxena argued that the status of the Delhi LG is greater than the governor of Union territories, as the governor of the state is selected by the central government and appointed by the President of India.” The court ruled that the LG is not above the law.
The LG’s office did not respond to the allegations.
Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said it was regrettable to see Bharadwaj speak against the LG with political bias.
“The LG of Delhi was involved in an incident when goons entered Sabarmati Ashram with sticks and verbally abused and attacked women. This incident took place 22 years ago and trial has not begun because there has been a BJP government in Gujarat,” Bharadwaj alleged.
He played a video in which some men were seen harassing a woman and attacking her with sticks. He said the woman was activist Medha Patkar, who was forced to run and lock herself up in a room.
The minister read out the provision of Article 362 (2) of the Constitution, supposedly quoted in the application of LG Saxena. “It is titled ‘Protection of President and Governors’, but VK Saxena is neither the President nor a Governor. This subsection says ‘no criminal proceedings whatsoever shall be instituted or continued against the President or the Governor of a state in any court during his term of office’. So, this is clear. Essentially, the immunity that VK Saxena was demanding is for either the President or Governors,” he said.