New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday deferred by six weeks hearing on a plea filed a Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal challenging an order of the Delhi High Court upholding the summons issued to him by a trial court in a criminal defamation case for retweeting an allegedly defamatory video circulated by YouTuber Dhruv Rathee related to the BJP IT Cell in May 2018.
A bench comprising Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice R Mahadevan posted the hearing on Kejriwal’s plea after six weeks to enable Kejriwal and complainant to reach a settlement after senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Kejriwal, sought some more time from the court to work out a settlement.
What did Kejriwal’s counsel submit?
Singhvi sought some more time for settlement, saying “We express regret for the tweet but some more time may be given (for settlement). Too many things are going on in this man’s life currently.”
Advocate Raghav Awasthi, who appeared for complainant Vikas Sankrityayan, submitted before the bench that time may be given to Kejriwal but it should not be unlimited and some negotiations have to take place.
Singhvi submitted that although Kejriwal expresses regret for the tweet in question but it cannot be on terms of the complainant.
Made mistake by retweeting allegedly defamatory video, Kejriwal earlier told apex court
Kejriwal had on February 26 told the apex court that he made a mistake by retweeting an allegedly defamatory video circulated by YouTuber Rathee related to the BJP IT Cell. The court had asked the complainant during the hearing whether he wanted to close the matter in view of Kejriwal accepting his mistake. Complainant’s counsel had told the bench that Kejriwal may issue an apology on social media platforms like ‘X’ or Instagram for his action.
Singhvi, during the previous hearing, had told the bench that the parties could not get in touch with each other to discuss a settlement after the last hearing on March 11, while the counsel representing complainant Vikas Sankrityayan had told the bench that nobody contacted them after the last hearing on March 11.
The bench then had told the counsel representing the complainant that Kejriwal’s side will get in touch with the complainant and had posted the matter for further hearing in the week commencing August 12.
The apex court earlier had stayed proceedings in the matter.
Re-posting libellous content would attract provisions of defamation law: High Court
The High Court had in its February 5 order said that sharing any post with others by retweeting it attracts the liability for the offence of defamation and retweeting a social media post carrying defamatory content will amount to defamation under section 499 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
