The Delhi High Court on Tuesday granted four weeks’ time to Aam Aadmi Party national convener Arvind Kejriwal and others to respond in a criminal contempt of court case related to the publication of social media posts allegedly defamatory against High Court judge Swarna Kanta Sharma.
Senior counsel appearing for Kejriwal told the bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Renu Bhatnagar that the documents or details forming the basis of the contempt case had still not been received by them.
Counsel for the other side also expressed a similar view.
The judges, who ordered the court registry to provide those documents to the concerned parties, said that responses must be filed within four weeks.
In the matter alleging involvement in a planned social media campaign against Judge Swarna Sharma, the court also granted Aam Aadmi Party leader Gopal Rai and journalist Saurav Das four weeks to respond to the petition seeking contempt of court proceedings against them.
The court announced that it would take up the case for hearing on September 21.
For publishing social media posts that defamed him in connection with the excise policy matter, Judge Swarna Kanta Sharma had on May 14 initiated criminal contempt proceedings against Aam Aadmi Party leaders including Kejriwal, Sisodia, Singh and Durgesh Pathak, Saurabh Bharadwaj, and Vinay Mishra. In the contempt case suo motu initiated by Judge Sharma, the court had sent notices to Kejriwal and other party leaders on May 19 and had also granted four weeks’ time to respond. At that time, the court had appointed senior advocate Rajdeepa Behura as amicus curiae to assist the court.
Judge Sharma also initiated contempt of court proceedings against social media user Devesh Vishwakarma on ‘X’. Following that, lawyer Ashok Chaitanya also filed a contempt of court petition.
In the contempt of court order, Judge Sharma had noted that the former Delhi Chief Minister, instead of pursuing legal remedies, had carried out a coordinated defamatory campaign against him on social media. He also stated that another bench would now hear the CBI’s petition challenging the acquittal of all the accused.
On February 27, the trial court acquitted Kejriwal, Sisodia, and 21 others in the liquor policy case. It ruled that the case could not withstand judicial scrutiny and was completely unreliable.
On April 20, in the CBI’s petition challenging their discharge from this case, Judge Swarana Kanta Sharma dismissed their pleas seeking to be removed from the case. Following this, Kejriwal, Sisodia, and Pathak wrote a letter to Judge Sharma. In it, they said that they would not appear before her either in person or through a lawyer, and that they would follow Mahatma Gandhi’s path of satyagraha.
After Judge Sharma recused the CBI’s petition from her court, the case is now before Judge Manoj Jain.
