In election time, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal failed to get respite in a defamation case pending trial before a Delhi court.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to stay the proceedings initiated against Kejriwal and AAP leaders Prashant Bhushan, Manish Sisodia and Shazia Ilmi for accusing Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal’s lawyer-son of appearing in court for Vodafone at a time when several policies favourable to the company came up for decision before the Telecom Minister.
With the trial court set to decide on April 20 on whether a case was made out based on the complaint by Amit Sibal, Kejriwal’s lawyer and senior advocate Jayant Bhushan requested the court to first decide on his appeal in the SC. Till such time, he requested the court to stay the trial.
The Bench headed by Justice Hl Dattu was not inclined to grant the relief and directed the petitioner to face trial. When Bhushan requested the court to consider dispensing with Kejriwal’s personal presence in court due to elections, the Bench refused to pass an order. Instead, it allowed Kejriwal to move an appropriate application before the trial court while directing the trial judge to decide such application “on its own merits”.
The Bench said it can only expedite the hearing of the matter in the apex court and posted it for July 22. Earlier, on February 7, the Supreme Court had issued notice to Kejriwal and other AAP leaders.
The defamation suit was filed against Kejriwal and others for alleging that he had taken advantage of his father’s position to represent telecom companies and the trial court had issued summons to them on July 24 last year.
The Delhi High Court had on January 16 refused to quash defamation proceedings against AAP leaders but allowed the trial court to consider their discharge plea. This was altered after Sibal objected to High Court conferring power to discharge on a Magistrate. This order was challenged in the current proceedings.