Court issues non-bailable warrant against AAP MLA in J&K

Jammu, Mar 19: A court in J&K’s Jammu city has issued a non-bailable warrant against Mehraj Malik, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from the Doda Assembly constituency.

Special excise mobile magistrate Jammu has directed police to arrest the MLA and produce him before the court on May 14, the next date of hearing in the case.

Former Congress leader G.M. Saroori has filed a defamation case against the AAP MLA alleging that Malik has made false statements thereby defaming the complainant.

The case was registered at Gandoh Police Station under Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which deals with defamation.

Mehraj Malik won the Legislative Assembly election from the Doda constituency on an AAP ticket and defeated Saroori and others in those elections.

The AAP has one MLA in the 90-member J&K Assembly.

The party supports the Omar Abdullah-led National Conference (NC) government in the union territory.

In the Legislative Assembly elections held last year, the NC won 42, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 29, the Congress six, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) three, AAP one, CPI(M) one, Peoples Conference (PC) one and the Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) one. Six Independents also won the election.

Congress, AAP and CPI(M) supported the NC government from the outside while five out of six Independent MLAs joined the NC.

All the 29 seats of the BJP came from the Jammu division while the party could not win any Assembly constituency in the Valley.

Even some known faces supported by the BJP also lost the Assembly elections.

The Lok Sabha elections were held for five seats in J&K last year. The BJP won two, NC two and AIP led by Engineer Rashid won one Lok Sabha seat.

The Legislative Assembly and Lok Sabha elections were held six years after J&K became a UT on August 5, 2019.