Know the controversial former Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti

New Delhi: Former Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti is now better known for hogging the limelight for all wrong reasons. A close confidant of AAP supremo and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Somnath Bharti caught media headlines first when he wanted the Law secretary to convene a meeting of all session court judges to brainstorm on how to expedite speedy disposal of pending cases. The former Law Minister got furious with the law secretary when he responded by saying that calling a meeting of judges does not fall within his domain and that only the Chef Justice of Delhi High Court has the authority to call such meetings. The confrontation turned ugly after it was widely reported in media . Bharti had to finally relent. But the biggest controversy erupted when Somnath Bharti entered Khirkee Extension area of Delhi with AAP workers and TV crews purportedly to expose the ongoing drug trafficking and flesh trade in the area mainly by African nationals especially those from countries like Uganda. Bharti asked the police to enter the houses of those African nationals who were under suspicion but the police refused to enter the houses in the absence of a warrant. It was alleged that after the refusal of police, Bharti along with AAP supporters forcibly entered the households of these foreigners allegedly caught four women and forced them to give urine tests. The tests conducted at AIIMS did not find any drug traces in their system. The women alleged that they were threatened and even molested by the mob. Bharti and his party AAP has refuted these allegations and her produced a video presenting his part of the story. Kejriwal wanted the suspension of the police officials and sat on dharna in support of his demands which he later called off after the police officials were sent on leave till the enquiry was completed. So the question is who is this Somnath Bhatrti and what is his background? Born on 10 May 1974, Somnath Bharti actually belongs to Bihar and was born at Hisua Bazar of Nawada district. He completed his early education from a local government school, and then went to Patna for further education. He completed his M.Sc from IIT-Delhi and after that pursued a degree in law from Delhi University. Somnath was accused of spamming when he used to run IT firm Madgen solutions' based out of Delhi. The Spamhaus Project accused him of spamming on behalf of TopSites LLC, naming him in Register of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) as one of the top spam operators in the world. Responding to a PCQuest investigation in 2005, he insisted that all the e-mails sent by his company complied with the laws and regulations. PCQuest found that he had been sued in a California Superior Court for spamming by Daniel Balsam. Balsam's attorney Timothy Walton revealed that in 2004, Bharti and two others had paid Balsam in damages apart from making a court declaration agreeing to use only confirmed opt-in e-mail addresses when sending commercial e-mails. Bharti defended himself by saying that he chose to settle because defending the case in the United States would have been costlier for him. In June 2012, Bharti was involved in a campaign against the alleged interference of the then Minister of Human Resources and Development, Kapil Sibal, in the Joint Entrance Examination process for admission to Indian Institutes of Technology. Somnath Bharti is also known for taking up legal cases of downtrodden and deprived section of the socity through PILs. Patiala House Court had in 2013 indicted Bharti for "tampering with evidence" along with his client Pawan Kumar in a corruption case. He was issued a show cause notice by Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) asking him to explain why his name will not be removed from the rolls for ‘tampering' of evidence in a case in which he was a defence lawyer and for which he has been indicted by a court here. Bharti caused a major upset in 2013 Delhi assembly elections when he defeated two heavy weights, Kiran Walia of the Congress and Arti Mehra of BJP, from Malviya Nagar constituency. He was sworn as Minister of Law, Tourism, Administrative Reforms, Art & Culture in the Arvind Kejriwal govt that took the reins of power in Delhi on 28 Dec 2013.