In the controversy of an Aam Aadmi Party woman volunteer accusing AAP leader Kumar Vishwas of not refuting rumours of a relationship between them, the party took matters to the court on Thursday. Vishwas, through lawyer and MLA Somnath Bharti, filed a petition regarding summons issued to him in the matter by the Delhi Commission for Women.

This comes a day after Barkha Singh, chairperson of the DCW, wrote to the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Delhi Lieutenant Governor and the Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi complaining against Vishwas for failing to appear before the commission and the party for sending “ their women party member and disrupting the case proceedings”.

Vishwas has reportedly written in his petition that the summons issued by the DCW must be stayed and that the woman in question must be restrained from giving public statements. The matter is expected to be brought to the chief justice of the Delhi High Court for urgent hearing on Friday.

The Commission had sent the summons to Vishwas and his wife, based on the volunteers complaint, on May 4. However, Vishwas, who repeatedly told the media that he had not received any summons, did not appear before the commission. Instead, their press conference on May 5 was interrupted by DCW member Juhi Khan who staged a one-person walkout and then resigned from the body in protest. According to her the case against Vishwas was being fabricated and Barkha Singh, a Congress member, was using it for “political mileage”.

Both Vishwas’s non appearance and the drama at her press conference formed the basis of Singh’s aggrieved letter to the MHA, the LG and the Police Commissioner. “"This is really not done, we are here to help women in distress and redress their grievances. This kind act by AAP is maligning the image of the Commission. They have their government but that doesn't means that they can do anything," she wrote.

Meanwhile Vishwas has flown off to the United States, has been tweeting to his followers from the relatively controversy-free shores of New York.