Congress leader Kapil Sibal’s son Amit Sibal and ex-political secretary of Sheila Dikshit had filed defamation case against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal which was stayed by Supreme Court. The bench comprising of Justice P C Pant and Justice Dipak Misra who had previously stayed criminal defamation proceedings which was filed against Kejriwal by Nitin Gadkari, the BJP leader. Here too the plea was turned down and told that the court should not be restrained from hearing the case. Bench referred to its earlier order and said that they will not go against their own order which they had given.
When the chief minister Kejriwal told that Amit Sibal had made use of his father’s post when he was in UPA government to signify a telecom company in court. Sibal had slammed a defamation case against Arvind Kejriwal for this. When Kapil Sibal was communication minister, Amit had attended before the Supreme Court for telecom firm Vodafone, was alleged by Kejriwal, Amit then had filed a defamation case.
Pawan Khera who was Sheila Dikshit’s ex-political secretary also had filed a defamation case against the CM for giving derogatory remarks on former CM Sheila Dikshit. This case was filed by Khera, where he said that Arvind Kejriwal had used bad language against Sheila Dikshit in an interview on television.
The case that was filed by Nitin Gadkari was stayed in the Court on April 17, 2015. Kejriwal had challenged the constitutional validity of criminal defamation, which was put on him and told that it was made during British rule and so it should be removed. He also said that Section 499 and Section 500 under Indian Penal Code punished for nearly 2 years in jail is unconstitutional. Even the court is considering to decriminalise the defamation law and Subramanian Swamy, BJP leaded has filed a petition on this and thus Court has also asked the centre’s response on this issue. On 7 April 2015 Supreme Court asked the centre to state its opinion on decriminalising defamation law. Senior Advocate T R Andharujina and K Parasaran were appointed by court as amicus curie to help in this matter. Defamation case can also be filed under civil suit.
by Sushma Javare.
