The Supreme Court docket on Monday stayed trial court docket proceedings in opposition to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in legal defamation case in opposition to him for re-tweeting a video by Youtuber Dhruv Rathee on Bharatiya Janata Celebration (BJP) IT Cell.
A bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta heard the matter and ordered a keep on trial court docket’s continuing. The court docket has listed the matter for additional listening to on March 11.
Delhi Excessive Court docket on February 5 refused to quash the legal defamation case in opposition to Kejriwal saying that on-line interplay on microblogging platform X and sharing any posts with others by retweeting attracts the legal responsibility for the offence of defamation.
A bench of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma of the excessive court docket upheld a trial court docket order summoning Kejriwal within the case. The court docket famous that Kejriwal has a big following and he did perceive the repercussions of resharing the video. Nevertheless, the court docket held that if Kejriwal needs to justify his act of retweeting the video, it may be finished on the stage of trial.
The court docket had mentioned that retweeting a social media put up for carrying defamatory content material will appeal to fees of defamation by way of Part 499 of Indian Penal Code (IPC). The court docket upheld the summons issued by the Justice of the Peace and the order handed by the Classes Court docket rejecting Kejriwal’s revision plea in opposition to the identical.
Vikas Sankrityan who can be a founding father of a social media web page ‘I Assist Narendra Modi’ filed the defamation case in opposition to Kejriwal after he retweeted a video by Rathee.
Rathee in his video claimed that Vikas Sankrityan is a part of Bharatiya Janata Celebration (BJP) IT cell and he had supplied Rs 50 lakhs to Mahavir Prasad to take again allegations that the BJP IT cell spreads faux information.
In 2018, Prasad appeared in an interview with Rathee which was referred to as “BJP IT Cell Insider Interview”. Kejriwal shared this video on his X account.