HC dismisses Raghav Chadha’s plea on ‘retweet’
In a blow to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Raghav Chadha, the Delhi High court on Monday dismissed his plea which contended that he cannot be made to face a criminal case for merely retweeting the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s tweet. The case here refers to a criminal defamation case filed by Union Minister Arun Jaitley against the CM and five other AAP leaders.
Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal dismissed the petition stating that it is “devoid of merit”.
“The perusal of the complaint, statements of the witnesses examined by the complainant depict that the petitioner (Chadha) along with other accused persons participated in the press conference, issued derogatory statements orally, used Twitter handles, retweeted, disseminated, defamatory imputations targeting the complainant (Jaitley) through the platform of press and media from December 15, 2015 onwards and continued till December 20, 2015 after the CBI sleuths conducted a search,” court said.
On whether retweeting would constitute an offence of defamation under Section 499 of IPC, the High Court said it was a question that has to be determined in the totality of the circumstances and has to be decided during the trial.
“It is not for this court, while exercising inherent powers under Section 482 of CrPC …read more