Arvind Kejriwal, the Chief Minister of Delhi, filed a plea with the Supreme Court (SC) on Monday, citing defamation for retweeting a YouTube video in which the YouTuber made claims about the BJP IT Cell. The matter was postponed until August.
Judges Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta’s bench postponed the matter to August 12. Additionally, the stay on the trial court’s proceedings was prolonged by the supreme court.
In the defamation lawsuit against Kejriwal for retweeting a video, the bench had earlier ordered a stay of the trial court’s proceedings. The complainant in Kejriwal’s criminal defamation case was then given further time by the top court to talk with him about the details of an apology that would end the case. Senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing Kejriwal, said before the Supreme Court on February 26 that it was a “mistake” to repost the allegedly defamatory video that YouTuber Dhruv Rathee had posted in 2018.
The apex court had then directed the trial court not to proceed with the defamation case against him for the time being. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief had approached the apex court challenging the February 5 order of the Delhi High Court refusing to quash the summons issued against him.
The High Court had said that reposting alleged defamation content would attract defamation law. The summons was issued in a defamation complaint lodged against him for retweeting a video of a YouTuber on the social media platform ‘X’. Singhvi had told the apex court, “There is no problem in admitting that this was a mistake if he had known that these would be the consequences.”
The bench had then asked the complainant in the case to take instructions if the case could be closed based on Kejriwal’s admitting to the mistake. A defamation complaint was filed against Kejriwal for retweeting a video by a YouTuber in 2018 accusing the account holder of an X (formerly Twitter) page called ‘I Support Narendra Modi’ of behaving like ‘BJP IT Cell Part II’.
Kejriwal retweeted the post, which led to the account holder moving a defamation complaint against the Delhi CM. Vikas Sankrityayan, the complainant, asserted that the YouTube video with the title ‘BJP IT Cell Part II’ circulated by Rathee from Germany, contained false and defamatory allegations.
