Court declines to entertain defamation plea against Kejriwal

A city court has refused to entertain a civil defamation plea against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and AAP spokesperson Sanjay Singh by a BJP youth wing leader.
Additional Senior Civil Judge V K Gautam refused to entertain the petition saying the addresses of the two defendants, Kejriwal and Singh, did not fall in its territorial jurisdiction.
"The present court lacks the territorial jurisdiction to entertain the present suit," the court said in its order yesterday.
It had on August 8 reserved its order on whether to summon Kejriwal and Singh in the defamation plea which has sought a one rupee compensation from them.

Ankit Bhardwaj, a state executive member of Bharatiya Janta Yuva Morcha (BJYM), had claimed in his plea that he was projected as the person who had assaulted former minister Kapil Mishra on May 10.
He had earlier also filed a criminal defamation complaint against the AAP leaders for "wrongly taking" his name in the media by describing him as the person who had assaulted Mishra.

The civil suit, filed through advocates Yogesh Swaroop and D D Sharma, had said that due to the publication of the "false and defamatory" statements of Kejriwal and Singh, the reputation of Bhardwaj has been tarnished in the minds of party leaders, relatives, friends and the public at large.

The remarks were "deliberately made with a malafide intention" to defame the plaintiff and it was also "re-tweeted by defendant no. 2 (Kejriwal) from his twitter account," it had said.
The plea had claimed the person who had attacked Mishra was apprehended on the spot and the incident as well as his arrest had been recorded and broadcast in a single sequel.
It had further said that the person apprehended at the spot had claimed that he was an AAP volunteer.