Punjab: Former AAP leader Kumar Vishwas moves high court, seeks quashing of FIR against him

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Former AAP leader Kumar Vishwas on Tuesday moved the Punjab and Haryana high court, seeking quashing of an FIR lodged against him in Punjab over his "inflammatory statements" against Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. In the petition, Vishwas, also a poet, submitted that the case registered against him by the Rupnagar police was a “sheer abuse of the process of law and politically motivated”. “The manner in which the investigating agency is proceeding, it is apparent that it investigating agency is trying to curtail the liberty of the petitioner by adopting a procedure unknown to law,” Kumar said in his petition filed through his counsel Mayank Aggarwal and Himanshu Gupta. It was further submitted that the registration of the FIR against Kumar is “absolutely illegal, arbitrary and unjust and it is nothing but a means to wreak vengeance through politically motivated criminal investigation by using the state machinery for oblique motive of political gain”.

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The petition is yet to be listed for hearing. The petitioner stated the lodging of the FIR reveals an “apparent malafide intention and the abuse of the process of law”. The case has been registered at an “alien jurisdiction at Rupnagar Police Station which has nothing but an oblique motive to settle political scores as the alleged statements/interviews were given in Mumbai”, he said. The case was lodged against Vishwas in Rupnagar town's Sadar police station on April 12. The former AAP leader ahead of the assembly elections had accused Kejriwal of supporting separatists. The Punjab police on April 20 had visited Vishwas's home in Ghaziabad and summoned him for questioning.

Vishwas was booked following a complaint in which it was alleged that he gave "inflammatory statements" against Kejriwal on news channels and social media platforms, alleging Kejriwal’s links with separatist elements. The complainant had claimed that when he was roaming in villages along with AAP supporters for the redress of people's grievances, some unknown masked men stopped them and called them Khalistani. “Similar incidents have been occurring regularly. All this started after Kumar Vishwas gave inflammatory statements against AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal on news channels / social media platforms alleging AAP links with separatist elements," the complainant had said. The FIR was registered under various sections, including 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place etc), 505 (whoever makes, publishes or circulates any statement, rumour or report), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and 125 of the Representation of People Act.

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