Contempt case: Kejriwal, AAP leaders gets 4 weeks to respond
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday gave four weeks to AAP leaders Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh and others to respond to a criminal contempt case initiated against them for their “vilifying” social media posts against Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma.
The senior counsel for Kejriwal told a bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja that he was yet to receive the material that formed the basis of the contempt case. A similar submission was also made by the lawyers appearing for other parties.
The bench asked the registry to supply the material to the respondents and said, “Reply by respondents be filed in four weeks.” The court also gave four weeks to AAP leader Gopal Rai and journalist Saurav Das to file their replies in a petition seeking contempt action against them for allegedly being part of an “orchestrated social media campaign” against Justice Swarana Sharma.
The court listed the matter for hearing on September 21.
On May 19, the court had issued notice to Kejriwal and other politicians on the suo motu contempt case initiated against them by Justice Sharma and had granted them four weeks to file their response. It had then appointed senior advocate Rajdipa Behura as amicus curiae. Justice Sharma had on May 14 initiated criminal contempt proceedings against Kejriwal, Sisodia, Singh and other AAP leaders, including Durgesh Pathak, Saurabh Bharadwaj and Vinay Mishra, over their “vilifying” social media posts against her in relation to the excise policy case.
