Police asked to file detailed ATR on plea against team Anna

New Delhi: A court here on Saturday directed Delhi Police to file a detailed action taken report on a plea for lodging FIR against Anna Hazare and his former team members for allegedly cheating over four crore people by selling them `Anna SMS cards`, whose service was discontinued before the promised one year time, which earned them Rs 100 crore.

Metropolitan Magistrate Akash Jain was not satisfied with the one-page action taken report (ATR) filed today by police in which it sought some more time for conducting enquiry on the plea. The court fixed the matter for December 10 and asked the police to file a detailed ATR on the criminal complaint filed by Delhi resident, Rumal Singh, who alleged that he was part of the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement headed by Anna and his other core members. The ATR, filed by the Parliament Street Police here, said that the complainant and others had purchased the Anna cards "voluntarily" and nobody has been "induced" by IAC and its team leaders. "It is further submitted that the complainant and other volunteers of the movement have purchased voluntarily the said Anna Cards. Nobody has been induced by the IAC and its team leaders," it said. The ATR also said the IAC started selling these SMS cards from last week of February last year in the World Book Fair at Pragati Maidan here. "On initial enquiry, it came into notice that the offence took place i.e. World Book Fair, Pragati Maidan...Falls in the jurisdiction of PS Tilak Marg...The complaint of Rumal Singh has been transferred to PS Tilak Marg, New Delhi for necessary enquiry on October 21, 2013. "It is further submitted that complaint has been received back on November 28, 2013 at PS Parliament Street after taking statement of the complainant. It is therefore requested that some more time may please by given for conducting enquiry and finding out actual facts of complaint mentioned by complainant," the ATR said. Singh, in his complaint, had claimed that Anna, Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi, Kumar Viswas, Sanjay Singh, Manish Sisodia and Gopal Rai, who were the core members of IAC and later fragmented and formed their own political party -- Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), allegedly in collusion with private companies defrauded more than four crore people. He had alleged that SMS card launched in February 2012 promised to provide information about the Hazare-led campaign`s activities for a year but it discontinued without any convincing reasons from the members of the group. "Through the sale of these SMS cards AAP has illegally raked in more than Rs 100 crores and thus defrauded more than four crore common people," Singh had claimed in his complaint. The complainant had alleged that the price of each SMS card, which was valid for a year was of Rs 20 but was sold to the general public and volunteers of the movement at Rs 25. The petition further claimed that Kejriwal was informed about the disruption, who despite the knowledge had taken no steps to restart the services.