New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday (May 20) issued notice to Congress Lok Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) Shashi Tharoor and sought his response to a defamation plea filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Rajeev Chandrashekhar against him.
Chandrashekhar has moved the High Court challenging February 4 magisterial court order refusing to summon the Congress MP, saying prima facie “no ingredients of defamation” was made in the complaint and dismissing his criminal defamation case against Tharoor.
What has Chandrashekhar alleged?
Chandrashekhar alleged that Tharoor defamed him by making “false” and “derogatory” statements against him on national television, claiming Chandrashekhar “bribed” voters in the Thiruvananthapuram parliamentary constituency during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The BJP leader has alleged that Tharoor made the allegations against him with the intent to lower his reputation and to impact the result of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections while knowing fully well that the statements were false.
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Justice Ravinder Dudeja, hearing Chandrashekhar’s revision petition, said the “matter required consideration” and issued notice to Tharoor.
“Issue notice to the respondent. Let the trial court record in digital form with bookmarking be requisitioned,” the High Court said, news agency PTI reported.
What did Chandrashekhar’s counsel say?
Chandrasekhar’s counsel told the court that even the sub-collector and nodal officer, model code of conduct, Thiruvananthapuram, had issued a “strict warning” to Tharoor over his unverified averments and had directed removal of the objectionable content by the media on a complaint against statements made by Tharoor. The counsel further said that the magisterial court failed to consider that Tharoor made an attempt to steal a march in the Lok Sabha 2024 election through false statements right before the election to severely harm Chandrasekhar’s credibility and reputation and ignored the evidence while ruling that no case of defamation was established.
The matter would be further heard on September 16.
