The Delhi High Court on Friday sought response of the Delhi government and Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s plea to quash summons in a defamation complaint against him by the BJP leader.
Justice Manoj Kumar Ohri issued notice to the State of NCT and Mr. Gupta seeking their stand on Mr. Kejriwal’s plea by November 20, the next date of hearing.
The High Court, however, declined to issue notice on Mr. Kejriwal’s application seeking stay on summons issued to him by the lower court on July 8.
Mr. Kejriwal had challenged the July 8 summons by moving a revision plea which was dismissed by the lower court on July 26 that he has also challenged in the High Court.
The High Court said prima facie, it appears that trial would be required to decide if the AAP chief’s retweet of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia’s tweet was defamatory.
‘No trial needed’
Mr. Kejriwal, represented by senior advocate Vikas Pahwa, has claimed that he has not named Mr. Gupta in his tweet or retweet. He also argued that no trial was required to determine if retweets would amount to defamation as then anyone and everyone who retweets a tweet would be roped in irrespective of their comment in the retweet.
Mr. Gupta, in his complaint, had accused Mr. Kejriwal and Mr. Sisodia of “maligning” his image by allegedly accusing him on Twitter of being part of a “conspiracy” to kill the AAP chief.
After Mr Kejriwal was slapped in May this year during the general election campaign, he had alleged on Twitter that the BJP wanted to get him killed by his own personal security officer in the manner in which Indira Gandhi had been assassinated.
In response to his comments, Mr. Gupta had said that Mr. Kejriwal was slapped because he had relaxed his security cordon. To this, Mr. Sisodia had tweeted that there was a conspiracy to kill the Chief Minister and that Mr. Gupta was allegedly a part of it.
