New Delhi, October 24: A Delhi court on Thursday sought report from city police on a plea seeking lodging of FIR against Anna Hazare and its 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 directed the Parliament Street, SHO to look into the complaint and file Action Taken Report by next date of hearing on November 30.
The court’s direction came on a criminal complaint filed by a Delhi resident – Rumal Singh, who alleged that he was part of the India Against Coruption (IAC) movement headed by Anna and his other core members.
He said Anna, Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi, Kumar Viswas, Sanjay Singh, Manish Sisodia and Gopal Rai, who were the core members of the IAC and later fragmented and formed their own political party – Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), allegedly in collusion with the private companies defrauded more than four crore people.
Mr. Singh further said that the SMS card launched in February 2012 ensured the people to provide information about the Hazare-led campaign’s activities for a year.
However, the SMS service was 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,” Mr. Singh in his complaint filed through advocate Saliender Pratap Singh said.
The complainant 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.
“After start of Anna SMS cards facility in the last week of February 2012, the service was abruptly terminated within a month…where in the original Anna SMS card facility was valid for a period of one year from the date of purchase,” the counsel said, adding “the IAC members faced with fund crunch decided to rake up crores of money by selling these Anna SMS cards”.
The petition further said that Mr. Kejriwal was informed about the disruption, who despite the knowledge had taken no steps to restart the services.
