Delhi: Court to pass order on Wednesday in Kejriwal's plea against his summon in criminal complaint

A session court will pass an order on Wednesday in a plea filed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal challenging a magisterial order of issuing a summon against him in a criminal complaint.

Kejriwal through his legal team had challenged the magistrate court order which issued a summon against him as an accused.

The criminal complaint was filed by the founder of social media page 'I Support Narendra Modi' who alleged that the Chief Minister re-tweeted a defamatory video by YouTuber Dhruv Rathee in May 2018.

The court was hearing a complaint by Vikas Sankrityayan, who claimed that on May 6, 2018 "a number of false and defamatory allegations were made" in Rathee's video titled 'BJP IT Cell Part II'.

Sankrityayan said that Kejriwal re-tweeted the video from his twitter account without checking the authenticity of the video.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate in its order had directed Kejriwal to appear before the court on August 7.

"Therefore, in view of the discussion there exists sufficient grounds to proceed against the respondent Arvind Kejriwal under section 500 (defamation) IPC."Accordingly, Kejriwal is summoned for the commission of the offence of defamation...," the court said.

It said that "allegations in the video are prima facie defamatory and refers to complainant Vikas Sankrityayan making him an aggrieved person."

"The complainant alleged that the allegations made against him in the video are false, malicious and defamatory and it has lowered the reputation of the complainant in the eyes of right thinking members of the society. So far no proof has been tendered on the allegations," read Sankrityayan's complaint.

Kejriwal's legal team argued that even Dhruv Rathee who posted that video is not an accused but the complainant had made the Chief Minister as an accused in the complaint.

The court had reserved the order after concluding the arguments of both sides.

-ANI

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