The Delhi Police informed a local court that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s Personal Secretary, Bibhav Kumar, who is accused of assaulting and misbehaving with AAP MP Swati Maliwal, had revisited the Chief Minister’s residence, raising concerns about possible evidence tampering.
In the plea for custody, police mentioned that this was not the first criminal case for Bibhav Kumar. In 2007, he was implicated in a case in Noida for assault on a public servant.
The IO and the Additional PP both told the Tis Hazari court that the case was grave. The victim was not only a public personality, but a woman MP who was severely manhandled.
Metropolitan Magistrate Gaurav Goyal, in his ruling, pointed out that the absence of video footage and the accused’s erasure of his mobile phone data were significant, providing enough reason to arrest him without prior notice.
The court noted that the DVR of the incident time was not found, and a JE rank officer furnished blank video footage of the time.
Further, the police maintained that the custody of Bibhav Kumar was required to be taken to Mumbai for the purpose of investigating the formatting of the phone and retrieval of deleted data.
The court directed that Bibhav Kumar be taken into police custody for five days and that he be medically examined every 24 hours, and that he not be given any rigorous treatment. The court permitted Kumar to confer with his lawyers and his wife Priyambada for half an hour daily during the custody period.
