Hearing in defamation case against Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia deferred for June 26

Hearing in the defamation case filed by BJP leader Vijender Gupta against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia was on Monday deferred for June 26 by the Rouse Avenue Court. Now the pre-summoning of evidence will be recorded by the court on June 26.

Earlier while hearing the case on June 6, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Samar Vishal had admitted the matter and fixed June 24 as the date for the examination of Gupta and his witnesses statements for proving charges against AAP's top two leaders.

Gupta had filed a defamation suit filed against the duo for allegedly "maligning" his image after they accused him of being part of an alleged "conspiracy" to kill the AAP chief.

READ: BJP's Vijender Gupta sends legal notice to Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia. Details here

The defamation suit has been filed under Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for "willfully, deliberately, intentionally and maliciously" defaming the complainant, "on wholly and completely false, frivolous, unjustifiable and scandalous grounds and thereby, harming the goodwill and reputation of the complainant, within the political fraternity, media, friends, family, colleagues and in society at large."

Earlier on May 21, Gupta had sent a legal notice to Kejriwal and Sisodia for allegedly attempting to "frame him" in an alleged assassination plot against the Chief Minister.

Gupta has also alleged that Kejriwal and Sisodia have made several tweets with baseless allegations against him. Gupta has 118K followers, while Kejriwal and Sisodia have 14.9 million and 1.8 million followers respectively, who might have read their tweets.

"While Kejriwal's tweet was retweeted 3,194 times and that of Sisodia's was re-tweeted 1,301 times. Not only that. Twitter being a public platform, it might have reached and read by so many other people in and outside Delhi," said the complainant.

Vijender Gupta also said that in the recent past, in order to make political gains, Kejriwal allegedly scripted the slap-gate during a road-show in the capital city on May 5. AAP had blamed the BJP for the incident.

READ: War of Words: Arvind Kejriwal claims increase in crime rate in national capital, Delhi police counters