Court refuses to summon CM Arvind Kejriwal on basis of tweet

NEW DELHI: A

court

has

refused

to

summon

chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in a

defamation case

on the

basis

of a

tweet

after observing that the relevant legal provision covers CDs, and not tweets. The court, however, prima facie, found sufficient grounds to summon AAP leader Sanjay Singh.

BJP youth wing member Ankit Bhardwaj had alleged that he was defamed after Singh, in a television interview, and Kejriwal, in a tweet, named him as the one who assaulted Kapil Mishra, now an AAP rebel, on May 10, 2017. In the melee, the attacker, wearing a green T-shirt, identified himself as Ankit Bhardwaj, an AAP member. However, an AAP volunteer soon claimed that the man was a member of BJP’s youth wing, which was denied by BJP.

Additional chief metropolitan magistrate Samar Vishal said the only allegation on Kejriwal was that he had re-tweeted a defamatory tweet relating to that assault implicating the complainant. “The content of the tweet was different from the interview given by Sanjay Singh. The tweet was not what Singh has said,” the court said.

When it came to substantiating allegations against Singh, a witness corroborated Bhardwaj’s claims of a “defaming interview”. The court, however, did not find a similar validation of the allegation against Kejriwal. “In fact, there is no witness on behalf of the complainant who says that due to this tweet, the reputation of the complainant was lowered in his eyes,” the judge observed.

There is also “no specific certificate” in the relevant provision of Indian Evidence Act to show the genuineness of the tweet, the court pointed out. “There is only one certificate under Section 65B of Indian Evidence Act. It primarily covers the CDs and does not say anything about the tweets,” it held. Singh’s remarks, on the other hand, are on record in the form of CDs, the court said.

The interview of Singh was aired with Bhardwaj’s Facebook account that showed his affiliation with Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha, Bhardwaj alleged, adding that it had led to BJP being questioned on the incident by different news channels. The false accusations against him had tarnished his image in front of his colleagues, friends and family, Bhardwaj said.


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