Defamation case: Court grants bail to 3 AAP leaders, directs Kejriwal to appear in next hearing

A Delhi court on Friday granted bail to three AAP leaders and directed Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to appear before it on July 16 in a defamation case filed by local BJP leader Rajiv Babbar over their alleged remarks on tampering of voters' list by BJP.

AAP leaders -- Sushil Gupta, Manoj Kumar and Atishi Marlena, who appeared before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Samar Vishal, were granted bail by the court on a personal bond of Rs 10,000 each.

The court also allowed the application of Kejriwal for exemption from personal appearance for today, as he had to attend the oath-taking ceremony of Justice D N Patel as the Chief justice of the Delhi High Court and later a meeting of the Delhi Jal Board.

In the defamation case, Babbar has alleged that the four AAP leaders harmed the reputation of BJP by blaming it for "deletion of the names of voters" from the electoral list in the national capital.

According to Babbar, they had stated that 30 lakh names of "Poorvanchalis, Baniyas, Muslims and other communities" were allegedly deleted from the voters' lists by BJP.

He has said that voters' lists were a prerogative of the Election Commission and not that of BJP.

The court had earlier issued summons to the four AAP leaders in connection with the case under section 500 (punishment for defamation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and had asked them to appear it today.