A Delhi court has dismissed a complaint seeking a direction to the Anti-Corruption Branch to lodge a cheating and corruption case against AAP MLA Akhilesh Pati Tripathi for incurring campaign expenses more than the prescribed limit of Rs.14 lakh in the 2013 Delhi Assembly elections.
However, while dismissing the complaint, Special Judge Hemani Malhotra, observed that “it prima facie appears that the MLA incurred more expenses than the prescribed limit.”
“I have gone through the complaint and the documents thoroughly from which, it prima facie appears, that the MLA incurred more expenses than the prescribed limit. However, in prima facie opinion the same was incurred when the MLA was not a public servant,” the Judge said while dismissing the complaint.
“The act/conduct of the MLA submitting accounts after he became a Legislator to explain the expenditure incurred by him before he was elected as an MLA is not an offence committed under the Prevention of Corruption Act as when the election expenses were incurred, he was not a public servant,” the Judge further said.
Complainant Vivek Garg, an advocate, in his complaint filed in 2015 alleged that the MLA from Model Town in collusion with unnamed officials of the Election Commission manipulated the account of expenditures on the campaign and understated it by about Rs. 9 lakh.
The MLA committed the offence when he was contesting the 2013 elections and was not an MLA but when the offence was finally completed when he had become an MLA, the complainant further said.
Against the Election Commission officials, the complainant alleged that they saved the MLA by conniving with them and stating that the expenditure incurred by the MLA in the campaign was within the prescribed limit.
Mr. Garg had sought prosecution of the MLA, among other provisions, 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant of the Indian Penal Code, and various provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Akhilesh Tripathi was accused of incurring campaign expenses over the prescribed limit
