Poet-politician and former Aam Aadmi Party leader Kumar Vishwas has moved a plea in the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking to quash an FIR against him filed by the Punjab police on charges of issuing inflammatory statements against AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
In his plea, Vishwas termed the registration of the FIR as illegal, arbitrary and unjust, and a deliberate attempt to “wreak vengeance through politically motivated criminal investigation using the state machinery”.
Vishwas submitted through his counsel that immediately after storming to power with a thumping majority in the recently-concluded Punjab Assembly elections, the AAP effected a series of complaints and FIRs against its political opponents on the basis of some old tweets and statements. This, Vishwas submitted was nothing but a bid to harass them.
Vishwas was booked on April 12 by Punjab’s Rupnagar police under IPC sections pertaining to promoting enmity between groups, criminal conspiracy, publishing or circulating news with intent to create enmity on the grounds of religion or race, besides under the Representation of People Act, on the basis of a complaint by Narinder Singh, police said.
A case was registered against Vishwas under various charges for his “inflammatory” remarks targeting Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in an interview in the runup to the Punjab assembly elections earlier this year.
Vishwas, in an apparent reference to Kejriwal without naming him, had remarked prior to the Punjab elections that the Delhi CM wanted to be “either the Punjab CM or the PM of Khalistan”. A video with the said remarks was shared by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the run-up to the elections, triggering a major controversy.