The judge said that the complainant can provide a form of apology to Arvind Kejriwal.
New Delhi:
The Supreme Court on Monday asked Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal if he is willing to apologize to the complainant over the incident. Arvind Kejriwal has challenged the Delhi High Court’s order upholding the summons issued to him as an accused in a criminal defamation case.
On February 26, Mr. Kejriwal told the Supreme Court that he made a mistake by forwarding an allegedly defamatory video related to the BJP IT cell circulated by YouTube user Dhruv Rathee.
During Monday’s hearing, counsel for the complainant Vikas Sankrityayan told judges Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta that Mr Kejriwal may issue an apology on a public platform such as micro-blogging platform ‘X’ or Instagram.
“You tell us what you want. We can put it on the other side. We’re not going to be in your shoes or the other side’s position,” the judge told the attorneys.
The bench said the complainant could provide Mr Kejriwal with a form of apology.
“So, if you want to apologize, you can circulate it without affecting your rights and arguments. Let him check it,” the bench told senior lawyer Abhishek Singhvi, who appeared for Kejriwal ).
“Otherwise we will examine the legal question, whether merely retweeting is a criminal offense… We may agree with you, we may agree with the other side. We will examine that,” the judge said.
When one of the lawyers sought time to take instructions, the judge said, “Apologise to him. If he agrees, that’s OK”.
Referring the matter for hearing in the week starting May 13, the judge said his earlier order asking the trial court not to hear the defamation case until March 11 would continue until the next hearing date.
On February 26, the Supreme Court, without issuing notice on Kejriwal’s plea challenging the high court order, asked the complainant whether he wanted to close the case as the complainant admitted that it was a mistake.
Singhvi had said that it was a case of retweeting on social media platform ‘X’ and the pre-summons evidence was recorded immediately after the complaint was lodged.
“Thereafter, the complaint was withdrawn. When it was refiled, after nine months of forwarding, news that the original complaint had been withdrawn was suppressed,” the senior lawyer said.
The High Court said in its judgment on February 5 that anyone who forwards allegedly defamatory content will be prosecuted under the defamation law.
It said reposting unknowing content must be done with a sense of responsibility, adding that reposting defamatory content must attract criminal, civil and tort proceedings if the forwarder fails to include a disclaimer.
The high court, while refusing to quash the trial court’s 2019 order summoning Kejriwal, had said that when a public figure posts defamatory posts on Twitter, the consequences go far beyond what is whispered in someone’s ear.
It said that if the act of retweeting or reposting is allowed to be abused as it is still considered an empty legal gray area, it will encourage people with malicious intent to abuse it and conveniently claim they just retweeted a tweet. content.
The Chief Minister told the High Court that the trial court did not realize that his tweets were not intended to or were likely to harm the complainant.
Sankrityayan claimed that the YouTube video titled “BJP IT Cell Part II” was circulated by Rathee, who lives in Germany, and “some false and defamatory allegations were made in the video”.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
