New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday (December 19) extended its stay on a defamation proceedings filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Rajiv Babbar against Delhi Chief Minister Atishi and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor Arvind Kejriwal before a trial court.
A bench comprising Justice Hrishikesh Roy and Justice SVN Bhatti extended the stay on proceedings before trial court while hearing a plea filed by the AAP leaders challenging a Delhi High Court refusing the quash the defamation case.
The bench also adjourned the plea filed by the AAP leaders for four weeks.
The counsel representing the BJP leader sought time to file reply to the pleas by the AAP leaders.
Apex Court earlier issued notice to Delhi government, Babbar
The top court earlier, while staying the proceedings, had also issued notice to the Delhi government and the BJP leader and sought their response on AAP leaders plea.
As per BJP leader Babbar, the remarks made by the AAP leaders about the alleged deletion of names of voters lowered the reputation of the BJP.
High Court earlier refused to quash proceedings against Atishi, Kejriwal and others
The High Court had refused to quash defamation proceedings against Kejriwal and Atishi filed by Babbar on behalf the Delhi unit of the BJP over their remarks about alleged deletion of the names of 30 lakh voters belonging to certain communities from electoral rolls in the national capital.
What did the High Court say?
The High Court, while refusing to quash proceedings, had said, “The issue highlighted by the petitioners (Atishi, Kejriwal) regarding discrepancies in the list of voters prepared and uploaded on the website of Election Commission may have been crucial and critical from the perspective of citizens, but imputing that the exercise of deletion of names of certain communities was at instance of BJP clearly exhibits that the imputations were made with malafides. Prima facie, the imputations lower down the reputation of BJP and undermine the trust of the voters in the said party.”
