The Delhi DCW chief Swati Maliwal has landed in legal trouble after charges of nepotism and illegal appointments of people to the DCW was levelled. The Court has said that she allegedly 'abused her position of power' and kept 'AAP workers in key positions in the DCW.' Maliwal has now been summoned by the Court to answer for her alleged crimes. Swati Maliwal is known for her sharp rhetoric and frequent comments on women rights. She will now face trial herself on alleged charges of nepotism and favouritism.
The court also ordered that former Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) members Promila Gupta, Sarika Chaudhary and Farheen Malick be put on trial. Special Judge Dig Vinay Singh said the perusal of minutes of the meetings held on various dates by the DCW, of which all four accused were signatories, were “enough to prima facie point to a strong suspicion that the appointments in question were made by the accused in agreement with each other”.“After all, none of the three accused besides Maliwal ever objected to or gave a dissenting note to the illegal appointments. Rather the decisions were claimed to have been arrived at unanimously in those meetings,” the judge said. The court ordered framing of charges against the accused persons under Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC, read with Section 13(1)(d) (criminal misconduct by a public servant) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The case was lodged by the Anti-Corruption Bureau on a complaint by former DCW chairperson and BJP MLA Barkha Shukla Singh. He said in the case, “the circumstances prima facie strongly indicate such a conspiracy between the accused persons”. “Accordingly, a strong suspicion does arise against all the four accused persons and the facts do disclose prima facie sufficient material to frame charges against all the four accused persons for offences,” the judge said.