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Synopsis

The Single judge bench of Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma of the Delhi High Court on Friday stayed the trial court proceedings against Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) Spokesperson and Media relations in-charge Harish Khurana in a defamation case filed by Delhi Deputy Chief Minister (CM) Manish Sisodia.

Moreover, the single-judge bench issued notice on the plea filed by the BJP leader challenging the trial court's summoning orders dated November 28, 2019, and sought a reply to the plea.

During the hearing, Senior Advocate Kirti Uppal appeared for Harish Khurana and Senior Advocate Manish Vashisht appeared for Manish Sisodia.

Senior Advocate Kirti Uppal submitted that there is no common intention in this case. “Common intention is a pre-arranged plan; it was there is their complaint. The complaint says these are the tweets, and that’s defamation. On the face of it, it should be quashed”, he argued.

He further submitted that the Supreme Court has acknowledged that there are two sets of provisions, one S.199 of CrPC and the other S.500 of IPC.

He appraised the court that co-accused Vijender Gupta was summoned only under S.500 IPC, and the apex court had noted that the tweets made by him were not defamatory. Furthermore, he submitted that the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) did not deal with the tweets in particular and the same needs to be re-examined.

On the contrary, Senior Advocate Manish Vashisht vehemently opposed the plea and contended that the impugned order had already been examined by the Apex Court, which was decided on December 17, 2020.

Noting that the petitioner, Harish required a re-examination of the tweets, the single-judge bench stayed the trial proceedings and directed the senior counsel for Khurana to bring on record the judgment of the Supreme Court.  Accordingly, court listed the matter for further hearing on March 10, 2023.

On January 5, a single-judge bench stayed the trial court proceedings against Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders Hans Raj Hans and Manjinder Singh Sirsa in this defamation case.

Senior Advocate Kirti Uppal had appeared for Hans Raj Hans, and Advocate Pawan Narang appeared for Manjinder Singh Sirsa.

The counsel had apprised the court that one of the summoned persons (co-accused), Vijender Gupta had invoked the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court by filing a criminal appeal, and by order dated October 17, 2022, the top court had set aside the summoning order of the trial court against him.

It was also submitted that another summoned person, Manoj Tiwari had also filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) before the Supreme Court, which was dismissed. However, his appeal was on the limited point of the interplay of Section 199(2), and 199(6) of the CrPC.

The single judge bench was further told that after the summoning orders, the counsel for BJP leaders approached the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) for discharge from the present case, however, the same was dismissed by an order dated December 23, 2022.

Furthermore, the counsel had submitted that the Supreme Court in Vijender Gupta’s plea returned a finding on the summoning order that the tweet in question did not amount to defamation, and the case against the petitioners required re-examination.

BJP Leaders Harish Khurana, Hans Raj Hans, Manjinder Singh Sisra, Manoj Kumar Tiwari, Vijender Gupta and Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma were issued summons by an ACMM under Section 500 (punishment for defamation) read with Section 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.

In 2019, Delhi’s Deputy CM Sisodia sued six BJP leaders for defamation after they alleged corruption in the building of classrooms in Delhi’s government schools.

Case Title: Harish Khurana v. Manish Sisodia & Ors.