The Supreme Court has stayed the criminal defamation case against Arvind Kejriwal and Delhi Chief Minister Atishi. This case relates to comments made by the two AAP leaders in 2018, in which they accused the BJP of removing voters from the electoral list in Delhi.
Earlier, the Delhi High Court, in its September 2 order, had allowed the defamation case to continue without interference. Kejriwal and Atishi had been trying to get the case dismissed, but the court declined to halt the proceedings.
A bench consisting of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti suspended the trial court proceedings. Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, representing the AAP leaders, argued that Babbar, a representative of the Delhi BJP, filed the complaint. Still, neither the central nor Delhi BJP officially lodged any defamation complaint. He pointed out that Babbar himself wasn’t directly defamed.
Kejriwal and Atishi are challenging the Delhi High Court’s refusal to dismiss the case, which suggested that their remarks were intended to damage the BJP’s reputation and gain political leverage. Alongside them, other AAP leaders named in the case include former Rajya Sabha member Sushil Kumar Gupta and party leader Manoj Kumar.
The case traces back to a 2018 press conference where AAP alleged that under BJP’s direction, the Election Commission had removed around 30 lakh voters from Delhi’s electoral rolls, particularly from the Bania, Poorvanchali, and Muslim communities.
