Goel to challenge court's order of awarding jail term

Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel on Friday said he will challenge the order of a court which awarded him six-month jail term for trespassing the house of a realtor in an East Delhi Colony in 2015.

The Speaker said that he is a law-abiding citizen and respects the judiciary.

"I will file an appeal in the Sessions Court to challenge the order," Goel told PTI.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal on Friday held Goel and four others -- Sumit Goyal, Hitesh Khanna, Atul Gupta and Balbir Singh -- guilty, saying the case against them was proved beyond reasonable doubts.

The court, however, granted them bail on a personal bond to enable them to file an appeal before higher courts against the order of their conviction and the jail term.

The court had convicted the accused persons for the offence punishable under section 448 (house-trespass) of the IPC.

According to an FIR registered on a complaint by builder Manish Ghai, Goel and his supporters had raided one of Ghai's houses in Vivek Vihar on the night of February 6, 2015, a day before the Delhi Assembly elections.

Goel had allegedly raided the house of Ghai accusing him of stashing liquor, blankets and other things for distribution ahead of the polls, the FIR had said.

The AAP members had refuted these claims, saying they had gone to the house with a police team comprising the local station house officer and assistant commissioner of police, among others after making a PCR call in this regard.