In a big setback to Aam Aadmi Party national convenor Arvind Kejriwal, the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea filed by him challenging an order of the Gujarat High Court refusing to quash summons in a defamation case over his alleged remarks over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's educational qualification.
A bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti noted that a separate bench of the apex court had junked the plea filed by AAP leader Sanjay Singh on April 8 in the same case.
"We must have a consistent approach," said the bench.
The Gujarat High Court had on February 16 dismissed the pleas of Singh and Kejriwal seeking quashing of the summons issued against them in the case. Both AAP leader had challenged in the high court the summons issued by a trial court in the case filed by the Gujarat University and the subsequent order of the sessions court dismissing their revision pleas against the summons.
Gujarat University registrar Piyush Patel had filed a defamation case against Kejriwal and Singh over their comments after the Gujarat High Court set aside an order of the Chief Information Commissioner on PM Modi's degree.
They made “defamatory” statements in press conferences and on Twitter handles targeting the university over Modi's degree, the complainant stated. Their comments targeting the Gujarat University were defamatory and hurt the prestige of the university which has established its name among the public, as per the complainant.
Their statements were sarcastic and intentionally made to hurt the prestige of the university, he said.
Some of the comments quoted by the complainant and attributed to Kejriwal are: “If there is a degree and it is genuine, then why is it not being given?”; “They are not giving degree because it might be fake”; and “If the Prime Minister studied at Delhi University and Gujarat University, then Gujarat University should celebrate that its student became the country's PM”.
Singh said that “they (Gujarat University) are trying to prove the PM’s fake degree as genuine”, according to the complainant.
(With PTI inputs)
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