Delhi HC gives 4 weeks to Kejriwal, other AAP leaders to respond to criminal contempt case
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday, August 4, 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.
The judge also initiated contempt proceedings against X user Devesh Vishwakarma.
Subsequently, lawyer Ashok Chaitanya also filed a contempt petition.
In the contempt order, Justice Sharma had asserted that the former Delhi chief minister "orchestrated a calculated campaign of vilification" against her on social media instead of pursuing his legal remedies, and clarified that the CBI's petition against the discharge of all accused persons would now be taken up by another bench.
The judge took exception to several social media posts by the proposed contemnors that attributed "political allegiance" and "affiliation" to her and allegedly targeted her by posting a misleading "edited" video of a speech she gave at an educational institution in Varanasi.
She also noted the wide circulation of clips from the court proceedings in the case, stating that the proposed contemnors were creating a "parallel narrative", and "remaining silent" was not judicial restraint but a "surrender before a powerful litigant".
On February 27, the trial court discharged Kejriwal, Sisodia and 21 others in the liquor policy case, as it ruled that the case was wholly unable to survive judicial scrutiny and stood discredited in its entirety.
After Justice Sharma dismissed their applications seeking her recusal in the CBI's petition against their discharge in the case on April 20, Kejriwal, Sisodia and Pathak had written a letter to Justice Sharma, saying that they would not appear before her personally or through a lawyer and would follow "Mahatma Gandhi's path of Satyagraha".
After Justice Sharma released the CBI's petition from her court, the case is now before Justice Manoj Jain.
