New Delhi, Jan 27: The Supreme Court on Tuesday adjourned to April 21 the hearing on a plea of AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal and former Delhi Chief Minister Atishi challenging an order that refused to quash a defamation case against them over their alleged remarks on deletion of voters’ names.
A bench of Justices M M Sundresh and N K Singh deferred the matter, noting that it required a detailed hearing.
Senior advocate Meenakshi Arora, appearing for the AAP leaders, submitted that the bench had said that the matter should be taken up on a non-miscellaneous day (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday) and requested it to defer the matter.
Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, appearing for the Centre, submitted that the defamation pertained to a political party, which has authorised the complainant to file the plea on its behalf.
On September 30, 2024, the apex court, while issuing notice to complainant Rajiv Babbar, had stayed the proceedings before the trial court.
The top court had said that the legal question was whether the complainant or a political party would be covered under the definition of “aggrieved persons” within Section 199 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
However, the Delhi High Court had said the imputations were prima facie “defamatory” and made with an intention of vilifying the BJP and gaining undue political mileage.
The high court had dismissed the plea moved by Atishi, Kejriwal, former Rajya Sabha MP Sushil Kumar Gupta and AAP leader Manoj Kumar, against defamation proceedings pending in the trial court.
The high court said the summoning order passed by the trial court for offences under Sections 499 (defamation) and 500 (punishment for defamation) of Indian Penal Code did not call for any interference.
The AAP leaders had then challenged a sessions court order upholding a magisterial court’s decision to summon them as accused on Babbar’s complaint.
The AAP leaders sought the quashing of the magisterial court’s March 15, 2019 and sessions court’s January 28, 2020 orders.
Babbar, who moved the defamation complaint on behalf of BJP’s Delhi unit, sought action against the AAP leaders for “harming” the saffron party’s reputation by blaming it for deletion of voters’ names from electoral rolls.
He claimed that at a press conference in December 2018, the AAP leaders alleged that names of 30 lakh voters from the Bania, Poorvanchali and Muslim communities were deleted by the Election Commission on BJP’s directions.
Kejriwal and the other accused claimed the trial court failed to appreciate that no offence, whether of defamation or otherwise, was made out against them. (PTI)
