Court Orders Case Against Arvind Kejriwal Over Alleged Misuse Of Public Funds

New Delhi:

In a fresh setback for Arvind Kejriwal, who is out on bail in a case related to the alleged Delhi liquor policy scam and lost the Delhi Assembly elections – including his own constituency of New Delhi – last month, a court in the national capital has directed that a first information report (FIR) be registered against him and others from the Aam Aadmi Party over allegedly misusing public funds to put up large hoardings.

Hearing a petition seeking cases against Mr Kejriwal and two other leaders, Gulab Singh and Nitika Sharma, the Rouse Avenue Court directed the Delhi Police to register the FIR and asked for a compliance report by March 18. The case dates back to 2019 and a lower court had earlier refused to allow the petition.

The petitioner had alleged that Mr Kejriwal, former AAP MLA Singh and Dwarka councilor Sharma had misused public money by installing large hoardings across the area

In the over 10 years that the AAP was in power in Delhi, the BJP had repeatedly accused the party of misusing public money for its own publicity. In January, last year, the Directorate of Information and Publicity had also asked the AAP to reimburse Rs 163.62 crore, including interest, for allegedly misusing public funds for political advertisements. 

Even in January this year, the BJP had alleged that the AAP spent more on publicising some schemes than the money actually allotted for them. It claimed that while Rs 54 crore was allocated to the Business Blasters scheme, Rs 80 crore was spent on promoting it. For the Desh Ke Mentor scheme – which was meant to connect voluntary mentors with students of Classes 9-12 in Delhi government schools – the BJP claimed only Rs 1.9 crore was allotted and Rs 27.9 crore was spent on its publicity. The figures for the Stubble Management scheme were an allotment of Rs 77 lakh against nearly Rs 28 crore spent on promotion.