Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel was on Friday convicted for rioting and causing hurt at the house of a realtor in an East Delhi colony in 2015.
Goel has been convicted under Section 448 of the India Penal Code (IPC) for house-trespass. Arguments on the quantum of sentence will be made on October 18.
Section 448 carries a punishment up to one year, meaning that Goel is safe from disqualification. An elected representative gets disqualified if he or she is sentenced in an offence for 2 years or more.
The charge sheet, filed before chief metropolitan magistrate in September 2017, named seven persons as accused in the case accusing them of rioting, trespassing, causing mischief and voluntarily causing hurt.
Besides Goel, others who have been convicted are Sumit Goel, Hitesh Khanna, Arul Gupta and Balbir Singh.
The case pertains to an incident on February 6, 2015 when AAP’s Shahdara MLA and his supporters had allegedly raided one of the houses of a local builder in Vivek Vihar. Manish Ghai, the builder, alleged in the FIR that Goel raided his accusing him of stashing liquor, blankets and other stuff for distribution ahead of the assembly polls.
Goel had denied allegations, saying that they had first made a call to PCR with complaints regarding the same. The AAP leaders said that they had gone to Ghai's house with a police team.
The builder alleged that several items including almirah, drawers, kitchen items, window panes and mirrors in the house were broken. He alleged that labourers who were staying at the house at the time of the incident were physically assaulted by AAP leaders.
The police, in the chargesheet said, "As per the complainant, some labourers were staying at a house that was owned by him. He received a call from one of them at about 9.30 pm on February 6, 2015 about Goel and his associates forcibly entering the building and damaging the property."
