AAP volunteers to take Arvind Kejriwal’s message to every home

The Aam Aadmi Party national convenor and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday spent his third day in the Tihar Jail because of the principled stand taken by him on the issue of political battles being fought in courts of law.
AAP volunteers will take Kejriwal’s message of fighting corruption to every household in the national capital and the party has decided to begin a door-to-door campaign to ask the people whether speaking against and exposing corruption is a crime in India ?
The AAP has also decided to challenge the erroneous order of the learned Metropolitan Magistrate, who sent Kejriwal to judicial custody in the Tihar Jail despite the fact that he was ready to give an undertaking to ensure his presence on all dates of hearing in the case of criminal defamation filed by the former BJP President Mr Nitin Gadkari against him.
It is shocking that Mr Gadkari, who had to resign from the post of BJP President after his corrupt deals surfaced in 2012, is now likely to become a minister at the centre and Kejriwal, who exposed corruption, has been sent to jail.Kejriwal’s fight is not merely confined to a legal question of whether an individual summoned in a case of criminal defamation should be subjected to furnishing a bail bond, but it is for the rights of thousands of poor and helpless people languishing in jails due to their inability to furnish such bonds.The issue raised by Kejriwal poses a serious questionmark on the country’s legal system that whether people who cannot furnish surety bonds will be allowed to suffer in jails merely on technical grounds, even if they have committed no crime.It is strange that the court not only insisted on Kejriwal’s personal appearance but also sent him to jail for not furnishing the bond, whereas in three other cases of similar nature filed against him, the learned judges accepted his undertaking to appear before them and did not insist on a surety bond.The AAP views such mechanical procedures like insistence on bail bonds even when there is no apprehension that a defendant or an accused will not be present in court during dates of hearing, as major hindrances in the delivery of justice in the country.Not only such mechanical procedures harass the poor and helpless, these procedures also consume a lot of time of the courts in unnecessary formalities. The AAP’s view is that there is no need for personal appearance of the defendant in such cases and he can be represented by his lawyers, unless his attendance is compulsory for recording his statement or any other related development.