A city court on Saturday imposed a fine of Rs 2,500 each on top AAP leaders Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia for their failure to appear before it in connection with a criminal defamation complaint filed against them by Union Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal’s lawyer son Amit Sibal.
Metropolitan Magistrate (MM) Sunil Kumar Sharma imposed the cost on Kejriwal and Sisodia while accepting their pleas seeking exemption from personal appearance for the day only. Kejriwal had sought exemption on the ground that he was in Bangalore for the lok Sabha election campaigning while Sisodia said he had to rush to Amethi in UP as AAP leader Kumar Vishwas and other members of the party had sustained injuries after some persons allegedly attacked them there.
The court also released AAP leaders Prashant Bhushan and Shazia Ilmi, who had appeared before it, on an undertaking that they would appear before it on each and every date of hearing. The court has now fixed the matter for April 19. The court had on July 24 last year summoned Kejriwal, Sisodia, Bhushan and Ilmi on the criminal defamation complaint filed by Amit in which he had alleged that the AAP leaders had said that he had taken advantage of his father’s position to represent a telecom company in court cases.
During the hearing, Bhushan told the court that the matter should be fixed for hearing after April 9 as the Supreme Court was scheduled to hear the plea filed by Amit on that day. The apex court on February 7 had issued notices to Kejriwal, Sisodia, Bhushan and Ilmi on the plea filed by Amit and the bench had also stayed the Delhi High Court’s order of granting exemption to Kejriwal and others from personal appearance before the trial court.
“let us be before the Supreme Court on April 9. I am just asking for time till April 9,” Mehra said. The Delhi High Court on January 16 had refused to quash defamation proceedings against the AAP leaders but had told trial court to consider their discharge plea.