The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a petition filed by Aam Aadmi Party leader Deepak Bajpai challenging a Delhi High Court order in connection with a defamation case filed by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
No jurisdiction
A Bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra dismissed the plea by Mr. Bajpai, who questioned the jurisdiction of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM), Patiala House Courts Complex, to summon him.
Revision plea
Senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, for Mr. Bajpai, argued his client was from Kanpur and the CMM had no jurisdiction over him.
The Delhi High Court had on October 27 rejected Mr. Bajpai’s petition observing that he had failed to explain the delay of 458 days in filing the revision petition and his plea for condonation of this delay “lacks justifiable and bona fide grounds”.
The order came on the plea of Mr. Bajpai, who along with others was put on trial in the defamation case.
Besides him, Mr. Jaitley has named other AAP leaders, including Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, in the case.
The High Court had said Mr. Bajpai did not initially challenge the trial court’s orders of March 9, 2016, and January 30 and March 25, 2017.
Mr. Bajpai had later challenged them just to avail a fresh process under the garb of his application under the Limitation Act which “factually is misuse of process of law”.
DDCA issue
Mr. Jaitley had filed the complaint alleging that the accused persons had defamed him in a controversy regarding controversy surrounding the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) which he had headed for over a decade. Mr. Jaitley was the DDCA president from December 1999 to December 2013.
On December 21, 2015, Mr. Jaitley had filed the criminal defamation case.
