The Supreme Court on Tuesday adjourned to April 21 the hearing on a plea filed by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal and former Delhi Chief Minister Atishi challenging a lower court order that refused to quash defamation proceedings against them over their alleged remarks on deletion of voters’ names from electoral rolls.
A bench comprising Justices M M Sundresh and N K Singh deferred the matter, observing that it required a detailed hearing. Senior advocate Meenakshi Arora, appearing for the AAP leaders, submitted that the bench had earlier indicated the case should be heard on a non-miscellaneous day—Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday—and sought deferment accordingly.
Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, representing the Centre, argued that the alleged defamation related to a political party, which had authorised the complainant to initiate proceedings on its behalf.
On September 30, 2024, the apex court had issued notice to complainant Rajiv Babbar and stayed the proceedings before the trial court. At that time, the court framed the key legal issue as whether a political party or its authorised representative could be considered an “aggrieved person” under Section 199 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which governs the filing of defamation complaints.
Earlier, the Delhi High Court had dismissed pleas filed by Kejriwal, Atishi, former Rajya Sabha MP Sushil Kumar Gupta and AAP leader Manoj Kumar, holding that the imputations were prima facie defamatory and appeared to have been made with the intent to vilify the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and gain political mileage. The high court had also declined to interfere with the trial court’s summoning order for offences under Sections 499 (defamation) and 500 (punishment for defamation) of the Indian Penal Code.
The AAP leaders had challenged a sessions court order that upheld the magisterial court’s decision to summon them as accused. They sought the quashing of the magistrate’s March 15, 2019 order and the sessions court’s January 28, 2020 order.
The defamation complaint was filed by Babbar on behalf of the BJP’s Delhi unit, alleging that the AAP leaders had harmed the party’s reputation by accusing it of influencing the deletion of voters’ names from electoral rolls. According to the complaint, during a press conference in December 2018, the AAP leaders claimed that the Election Commission had deleted the names of around 30 lakh voters from the Bania, Poorvanchali and Muslim communities at the BJP’s behest.
Kejriwal and the other accused have contended that the trial court failed to appreciate that no offence of defamation or any other offence was made out against them.
