New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday (October 21) refused to quash a summon issued to former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor Arvind Kejriwal by a Gujarat court in a defamation case filed against him by the Gujarat University over his comments on the academic degree of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A bench comprising Justice Hrishikesh Roy and Justice, while upholding the summons issued to Kejriwal, noted that a similar plea by AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh was dismissed by a bench of the top court earlier.
Kejriwal moved apex court against a Gujarat High Court order
Kejriwal had moved the apex court against an order of the Gujarat High Court dismissing a plea filed by him and Singh and upholding the summons issued by a Gujarat magisterial court in the criminal defamation case and the subsequent order by a sessions court dismissing their revision.
Gujarat University has filed a criminal defamation case
Piyush Patel, Gujarat University Registrar, has filed a criminal defamation case against Kejriwal and Singh over their alleged “sarcastic” and “derogatory” statements in connection with the academic degree of PM Modi after the High Court set aside an order of the chief information commissioner (CIC) directing to provide information about academic degrees of PM Modi to them under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
The High Court had quashed the 2016 CIC order, saying that the RTI plea filed by the former Delhi Chief Minister appeared to be “politically vexatious and motivated”, instead of being based on “sound public interest considerations”.
What did the Gujarat University say in defamation complaint?
Patel, in his criminal defamation complaint filed before a court in Gujarat, alleged that the AAP leaders made defamatory and sarcastic statements in press conferences and on Twitter handles targeting the Gujarat university over PM’s academic degrees after the High Court order and the statements of Kejriwal and Singh targeting the Gujarat University were defamatory and the comments made by them hurt the prestige of the university, which has established its name among the public.
