New Delhi, March 21 (IANS): A court here on Saturday issued a bailable warrant against Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel after he failed to appear before it in a 2008 rioting case.

Metropolitan Magistrate (MM) Sunil Kumar Sharma issued the warrant. The court on January 12 had allowed his application seeking exemption from personal appearance on that day and asked him to personally appear in the court on March 21. After Goel failed to appear on Saturday, the court issued a bailable warrant of Rs. 10,000 against him and posted the matter for hearing on May 30.

The police, in its chargesheet, has alleged that the BJP workers had pelted stones at the CPI(M) office on March 9, 2008, damaging property and assaulting policemen when they were stopped by them.

The police had chargesheeted 21 persons, including Goel, BJP leaders and now a Union Minister Harsh Vardhan, Jagdish Mukhi and Aarti Mehra, in an alleged case of rioting and damaging public property during a protest by BJP activists at the CPI(M) office in central Delhi in March 2008. One of the 21 chargesheeted accused has since expired.

Goel, now an AAP leader, represents Shahdara Assembly constituency of Delhi.