Delhi High Court refuses to quash summons against Arvind Kejriwal in defamation case

Justice Sharma also said that social media platform X serves as a “megaphone that amplifies messages and broadcasts them” to an extensive audience, and provides the ability to communicate with millions of people at the “stroke of a button”.

The High Court further said that though “every retweet of defamatory imputation would ordinarily amount to ‘publication’ under IPC Section 499” it is ultimately for the aggrieved person to decide “which retweet caused more harm to his reputation, lowered his moral or intellectual character or credibility among the members of society”. The court said “whether the retweet had the potential to defame the complainant is to be decided by the trial court, based on material before it”.

The court, however, held that in the current case “retweeting a content, which is allegedly defamatory, on the Twitter account and projecting it to be as if his own views, will prima facie attract the liability under IPC Section 499”, for the purpose of issuance of summons.

It also said that the case was still at the stage where the accused is being summoned, and the Chief Minister will have the “opportunity to raise contentions” before the trial court, which will be decided as per law, including whether for the “purpose of trial case under IPC Section 499 is made out or not”. “At this stage, there was sufficient material before the Court concerned to summon the petitioner under IPC Section 499,” said Justice Sharma.

Kejriwal had, before the High Court, challenged a July 2019 order of a magisterial court summoning him, as well as a October 2019 sessions court order which had dismissed the Chief Minister’s revision plea against the summons.

The complainant–Vikas Sankrityan had claimed that the YouTube video titled ‘BJP IT Cell Part-2’ was circulated by Rathee, “wherein certain defamatory statements were made against” him.