A Delhi Court on Saturday remanded accused Swatantra Bhardwaj to one day of police custody in an alleged assault case relating to father of a teenage Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) activist during Jantar Mantar protest in July.

Bhardwaj was detained in Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr yesterday hours after the CJP staged a protest outside the Parliament Street police station demanding his arrest in the matter.

The Delhi Police yesterday added provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and criminal intimidation to the FIR against Bhardwaj over the alleged assault on the father of the minor activist. A POCSO case has also been registered against him.

Bhardwaj was produced before Additional Sessions Judge Saurabh Pratap Singh Laler of Patiala House Courts at his residence at around 2 PM today.

Advocate Rishav Ranjan, the counsel representing Nishu Azad(victim's daughter), termed the development “strange”, as he questioned the manner in which Bhardwaj was produced before the Court.

“Today at Patiala House Court around 1:45 he was presented before Judge at his residence and special VC arrangement was done for him. Judge was not sitting in Court. No idea about which charges are being freshly pressed. No Idea about how many days of remand was asked by the Police,” he tweeted.

On the other hand, Advocate Umesh Sharma for Bhardwaj told PTI that initially, the regular area magistrate, whose court normally handles the matter, was on leave and thus, they were informed that the accused would be produced before the Link Magistrate.

“However, since sections of the SC/ST Act and POCSO Act were also added, the investigating officer produced him before another judge, either virtually or otherwise. We were informed by the court that he had been remanded to one-day of police custody,” he said.

Bharadwaj came under scanner after his claims in a video podcast about assaulting the father of the CJP became viral. In the video, he boasted that he had political connections.