The Delhi High Court on Monday allowed Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to withdraw his plea seeking quashing of a trial court order summoning him in a criminal defamation complaint filed by a constable and await the lower court’s decision on whether to frame charges against him for the alleged offence.
Justice R.K. Gauba gave Mr. Kejriwal the liberty to move the High Court if the trial court framed charges of defamation against him.
The court had earlier stayed the trial court order summoning Mr. Kejriwal in the defamation complaint filed by Delhi Police constable Anil Kumar Taneja, who had sought dismissal of the Chief Minister’s petition seeking stay and quashing of the trial court order summoning him.
Opposing the Chief Minister’s plea, the constable in his reply had alleged that Mr. Kejriwal had “crossed all limits of decency” by using the insulting word ‘ thulla ’ for a policeman in an interview to a news channel.
‘Insulted Delhi Police’
Mr. Taneja, who had filed the criminal defamation complaint on July 23, 2015, claimed that by using the slang, Mr. Kejriwal had “intentionally insulted the Delhi Police force as a whole and caused unnecessary provocation to the police personnel in Delhi”.
The High Court in July last had asked Mr. Kejriwal to explain the meaning of the word ‘ thulla ’ he had allegedly used against policemen, while staying the trial court’s order.
Earlier, the Delhi Chief Minister’s counsel had told the court that the word ‘ thulla ’ was not used against all policemen, but against those indulging in wrong practices.
