New Delhi: A city court on Thursday (January 16) issued notice to Delhi Chief Minister Atishi and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) Sanjay Singh on a criminal defamation complaint filed by former Congress MP Sandeep Dikshit.
The defamation complaint filed by the Congress leader has alleged that the AAP leaders – Atishi and Singh – “deliberately caused harm to the goodwill of Dikshit”.
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Paras Dalal directed Atishi and Singh to file a reply to Dikshit’s defamation complaint by January 27, when the matter would be heard next.
Dikshit is contesting from New Delhi assembly constituency against Kejriwal
Dikshit, who is contesting the Delhi assembly elections from New Delhi assembly constitution against former Delhi chief minister and AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal, has accused the AAP leaders of making defamatory allegations without any material evidence.
Allegations levelled by AAP leaders baseless: Dikshit
Dikshit has claimed that Atishi and Singh made defamatory allegations against him and the Congress Party at a press conference by allegedly saying that he took crores of rupees from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and colluded with the BJP to defeat the AAP. The Congress leader has said that the allegations levelled against him by the AAP leaders were baseless and without substantiating the allegations with any material evidence.
Dikshit has said in the complaint that the live proceedings of the said press conference was shared by Delhi Chief Minister Atishi on her X (formerly known as Twitter) handle with the caption “BJP is helping Congress in the Delhi election”.
Defamatory content continues to be available on social media platform X: Dikshit
“Moreover, the said X post has over 30,000 views on Twitter and has been shared widely. Further, the news of the defamatory statements has been widely carried by national newspapers,” Dikshit’s complaint said.
It has further said that a legal notice was sent to the AAP leaders on January 2, however, the defamatory content continues to be available on social media platform X.
