Delhi court reserves order on summoning Arvind Kejriwal in civil defamation plea

New Delhi: A court on Wednesday reserved its order on whether to summon Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and AAP spokesperson Sanjay Singh on a civil defamation plea of a BJP youth wing leader seeking Re 1 as compensation from them. [caption id=“attachment_3529275” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Arvind Kejriwal. PTI[/caption] Additional senior civil judge VK Gautam heard arguments of the counsel for the plaintiff and listed the matter on 29 July for pronouncing the order on whether to summon the two AAP leaders on the suit which claimed that the complainant was projected as the person who had assaulted former minister Kapil Mishra. Ankit Bhardwaj, a state executive member of Bharatiya Janta Yuva Morcha (BJYM), had earlier also filed a criminal defamation petition against the AAP leaders for “wrongly taking” his name in the media by describing him as the person who had assaulted Mishra on 10 May. “That the plaintiff (Bhardwaj) assesses the damages at Rs one crore but has no knowledge of any valuable assets of the defendants (Kejriwal and Singh). So the plaintiff limits his claim to Re 1,” the civil suit filed through advocate Yogesh Swaroop and DD Sharma, appearing for Bhardwaj, said. The plea said due to the publication of “false and defamatory” remarks and 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, whosoever has seen the news. 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 said. The plea said the person who had attacked Mishra was apprehended at the spot and the incident as well as his arrest has been recorded and broadcast in a single sequel. It also said that the person apprehended at the spot has claimed that he was an AAP volunteer.