High Court stays proceedings against CM, Dy CM in defamation complaint

New Delhi : The Delhi High Court stayed on Tuesday the proceedings in a defamation complaint made against Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy CM Manish Sisodia by BJP leader Vijender Gupta.

Justice Rajnish Bhatnagar issued notice to the state and Gupta seeking their response on the joint plea by Kejriwal and Sisodia before the next date of hearing on February 27.

"Notice issued. Amit Ahlawat, additional public prosecutor for the state, accepts notice on behalf of respondent 1 (state) and submits that the issue is between the petitioners (Kejriwal and Sisodia) and respondent 2 (Gupta) and therefore, no reply or status report is required to be filed by respondent 1.

"On taking steps, let notice be issued to respondent 2 returnable on February 27. In view of the above, proceedings against the petitioners before the trial court shall remain stayed till further orders," the court said in its order which was dictated in-chamber and made available Tuesday evening.

After hearing arguments in the morning, the judge had said he would pass the order in-chamber. Senior advocate Vikas Pahwa and advocate Arunadhri Iyer, appearing for the two Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders, had argued in the court that only their clients were named in the complaint when the alleged defamatory tweet was retweeted, commented upon and liked by thousands of others.

Kejriwal and Sisodia, in their plea filed through advocate Mohd Irsad, have sought quashing of the complaint and also challenged the subsequent orders of the lower court framing charge against them and summoning them for trial in the defamation case.

They have contended that the lower court's orders to summon them for trial and frame charges against them were passed "arbitrarily" and "without application of mind". Their petition claims that a bare perusal of the complaint would reveal that "it was mala fide, politically motivated and makes out no case of defamation against the petitioners".

It also claims that the tweets in question "are neither defamatory nor published with the intention to defame the respondent 2". Gupta, in his complaint, had accused Kejriwal and Sisodia of "maligning" his image by allegedly accusing him on Twitter of being part of an alleged "conspiracy" to kill the AAP chief.