Defamation Case: Delhi HC Refuses To Quash Summons Issued Against Arvind Kejriwal (image-twitter/arvindkejriwal)
The Delhi High Court has declined to quash the summons issued against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The summons was issued for retweeting an allegedly defamatory video posted by a YouTuber Dhruv Rathee in 2018.
The court asserted that retweeting defamatory content does intend to amount to defamation, rejecting the AAP leader’s plea to dismiss the charges. The court also upheld the summoning order summoning the chief minister to appear for the case, reports Live Law.
The court then added that if Kejriwal wants to justify his act of retweeting, it can be done during trial proceedings.
“When a public figure with a political standing tweets or retweets defamatory posts, the repercussions escalate given the broader implications on society. The audience therefore becomes a citizenry at large whose opinion may be influenced by the information they consume, including the defamatory statement published on social media,” a bench of justice Swarana Kanta Sharma said.
The court added that ramification is far more than whispering when a public figure tweets or retweets something on social media.
The judge explaining the impact said that when millions of people follow a particular person, including the petitioner herein, on social media platforms such as Twitter, anything which is posted by the petitioner on his account is for the public who follow him.
Kejriwal initially approached the court in 2019 challenging the summons issued to him by the magistrate as well as the session judge.
The complaint against Kejriwal was filed by Vikas Sanskrityanan, founder of the social media page, “I Support Narendra Modi”. He claimed the YouTube video titled “BJP IT Cell Part II” was circulated by Rathee. Vikas in his complaint also added that false and defamatory allegations are made in the video.
Vikas alleged that the video was defamatory and that Kejriwal’s tweet had tarnished his reputation both in India and abroad. In December 2019, the proceedings were stayed by the High Court against Kejriwal after noting that the YouTuber who posted the original tweet was not included in the accused list.
Further, advocate Vikas Pahwa, representing Kejriwal stated that there were 11,114 people other than him who had either commented, retweeted, or liked Dhruv Rathee’s tweet on the day of filing the complaint, but Sanskrityanan had only chosen to file the complaint against the Delhi CM for vested reasons.
