A Delhi court on Wednesday acquitted Tahir Hussain, former councillor of the Aam Admi Party (AAP), of charges of defacing public property in 2015.
Police registered a case against Hussain on charges of putting up a board on an electric pole with the photographs of him and the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, with a message, “Wishing you all a Happy New Year. Delhi has called for Kejriwal again”. The police claimed he was booked for defacing the public property.
The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, while hearing the case, acquitted Hussain, citing no evidence. The magistrate said, “there is not even an iota of evidence led by the prosecution to prove that the board/hoarding was either installed by the accused or that the same was installed at his instance for his benefit”.
Hussain was acquitted by the magistrate Arun Kumar Garg under section 3 of the Delhi Prevention of Defacement of Property Act, 2007.
The court said the investigating officer has failed to point out in the charge sheet how he had pinned down the accused as the installer of the board as “he has neither recorded the statement of residents of the locality where the board in question was found affixed by police nor has he recorded the statement of the printer”, The New Indian Express reported.
Further, it is reported that the court noted that none of the witnesses deposed that Hussain had hung the board and only during the cross-examination of the two police witnesses did they state that they made enquiries with people from the locality who took Hussain’s name.
The court also observed those police witnesses had made improved statements as they could not disclose the names of the public witnesses who made these allegations.
“Thus, in the absence of any proof as to the installation of the alleged board by or at the behest of the accused, much less, the proof beyond reasonable doubts qua the said fact, there is no question of the accused being guilty of the offence of defacement of the property within the meaning of Section 3 of the DPDP Act”, the court declared.
Hussain is under judicial custody in a UAPA case connected to the Northeast Delhi riots
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