NEW DELHI: A sitting Congress MLA, his son and two supporters were on Tuesday sentenced by a trial court to three years of rigorous imprisonment for attempting to kill a person following a money dispute nearly seven years ago.
Additional Sessions Judge V K Bansal convicted MLA Dayanand Chandila, who represents Rajouri Garden, his son Megh Raj Chandila and two others, under various penal provisions relating to attempt to murder and house trespass.
The convicts were, however, allowed to walk free within minutes of the judgment being pronounced. The court granted them bail considering the defence's plea that the MLA, in his late 60s, was a senior citizen and was not a previous convict. The court added that though the maximum punishment prescribed under section 307 (attempt to murder) of IPC is life imprisonment, the convicts deserved a lenient sentencing as ``mitigating circumstances outweighed the aggravating ones''.
The court, which also imposed a fine of Rs 60,000 on them, granted bail after the convicts furnished personal and surety bonds of Rs 30,000 each. The bail is for the statutory period of 90 days to enable them to file an appeal in the Delhi High Court. Besides the father-son duo, other convicts in the case are Kunwar Nawab Singh and Manoj.
The case dates back to December 11, 2003, when an FIR was registered with the Tilak Nagar police station on the complaint of Sudesh Chandela, an alleged political opponent of the convicts. Chandela claimed that the accused had tried to kill him. The victim had loaned Rs 50,000 to Sufi, a resident of a slum cluster West Delhi. As the borrower absconded, Chandela locked his `jhuggi'. This resulted in a conflict with Manoj, one of the accused who had been eying the `property', the prosecution said.
The dispute became violent on December 11 when the accused, armed with swords and wooden sticks, attacked the victim at the instance of the MLA.
The MLA said he would challenge the verdict in the high court and added that he was being framed by his rival. ``I am innocent. I was not at the spot. It is an effort to defame me and my family members who are in politics,'' he said.
