While pronouncing the verdict a single judge bench of Justice Anoop Kumar Mendiratta said on Friday, “No doubt the petitioner (Kumar) happens to be only designated as the PS but the facts and circumstances reflect that he yields considerable influence and it cannot be ruled out that witnesses may be influenced or evidence may be tampered with in case the petitioner is released on bail at this stage”.

“Keeping in view the nature and brevity of accusations and apprehension of the witnesses being influenced, no grounds are made out for releasing the petitioner on bail at this stage. application is accordingly dismissed,” added Justice Mendiratta.

A detailed copy of the order is awaited.

Kumar, who was arrested on May 18, moved high court after the trial court denied him bail on June 7. He has been booked under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) including those pertaining to assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to disrobe, criminal intimidation, and attempt to commit culpable homicide among others.

During the hearing on Wednesday, Maliwal who was present in the court said that her “entire life’s work has been, in a way, taken away” from her as she reiterated that she was “brutally assaulted” by Kumar. “It was horrible. And after that, the CM himself protested on the streets in favour of the PA. All the Delhi government ministers…have done press conferences where they have tried to show that I am some other party’s agent…That is not true”.

Swati Maliwal said she has been subjected to “vicious social media trolling”, adding that the “life of her and her family is under threat”. “Presently, everybody in the party reports to this man (Kumar)… As far as I am concerned, I am a nobody now because I am an MP without a party… My only request is please give justice to me,” she added.

Meanwhile, appearing for Kumar, Senior Advocate N Hariharan had said the petitioner had been in custody for 54 days, while all “necessary investigations are completed”. Hariharan submitted that the Delhi Police had collated all evidence on May 16. He said not granting bail to Kumar would amount to “pre-trial punishment” in a case where an offence under IPC Section 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide) is not made out.

“There was no incident of this sort (the assault) which happened. She is a sitting MP and it is highly unimaginable that without any cause, the political secretary will choose to beat her up,” Hariharan added.

Hariharan also questioned why the complaint was not filed on the date of the alleged incident, and filed three days later on May 16. “I’m (Kumar) one of the lowest functionaries… She is an MP… Where was the question of just going and beating her up?” Hariharan had said.

He had submitted Kumar had also lodged a complaint for a case of trespass against Maliwal on May 17, however, the police had “chosen not to register anything in relation to that”.

Opposing the bail plea, Senior Advocate Sanjay Jain, appearing for the Delhi Police, had said, “We are in the midst of an investigation. We will file the chargesheet on or before July 16”.

Jain said on May 17, when the police reached Kejriwal’s residence for investigation, two network video recordings (NVRs) were recovered while “one NVR was missing”. “The data was provided on a pen drive and it surfaced that for the relevant period mentioned in the FIR, the recording…was missing…”

Maliwal’s counsel also pointed out that there were “two clips which were edited and doctored” and “released a few days after FIR was lodged”.