PM degree row: Court refuses expeditious hearing of revision plea by AAP’s Kejriwal, Singh

The sessions court took into account that arguments in the case will be lengthy, that the magistrate court has already recorded the plea of the two accused and is currently at the stage of leading of evidence by the complainant, that the sessions court had earlier refused to grant interim relief by staying the summons issued and that the Gujarat High Court too had refused to grant such interim relief. The court held that it is “in the interest of justice that the regular presiding officer” of court number 16 of the sessions court hears the matter.

In the defamation complaint, moved by Registrar Piyush Patel, Kejriwal and Singh have been accused of defamation based on their statements to the media in response to the Gujarat HC’s decision to set aside an order of the Central Information Commission that had directed the Gujarat University to “search for information” regarding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s degrees.

According to the complaint, the statement was made before the media and broadcast through Twitter with the intention of damaging the reputation of the university, despite knowing that such utterances would be defamatory. According to Patel, Kejriwal made defamatory utterances at a press conference on April 1 and Singh before the media on April 2.