The Supreme Court will hear on March 11 a plea filed by Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh who has challenged the Gujarat High Court order dismissing his petition for quashing the summons issued against him in a criminal defamation case over alleged comments on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s educational qualification.
The high court had on February 16 dismissed the pleas by Singh and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal seeking quashing of the summons issued against them in the defamation case.
Singh’s plea challenging the high court order came up for hearing on Thursday before a bench of Justices B R Gavai and Sandeep Mehta. The apex court posted the matter for hearing on March 11.
Singh has filed the petition in the apex court through advocate Vivek Jain. Kejriwal and Singh had challenged in the high court the summons issued by a trial court in the case filed by Gujarat University and the subsequent order of the sessions court dismissing their revision applications against the summons. A Gujarat metropolitan court had earlier summoned Kejriwal and Singh in the defamation case over their alleged "sarcastic" and "derogatory" statements in connection with Modi’s educational degrees.
Gujarat University Registrar Piyush Patel had filed the defamation case against them over their alleged comments after the Gujarat High Court set aside an order of the chief information commissioner for providing information about Modi’s educational degrees under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. According to the complaint filed by Patel, the two leaders allegedly made defamatory statements at press conferences and on microblogging platform X, targeting the university over Modi’s degrees.
Their comments targeting the Gujarat University were defamatory and hurt the prestige of the institution, which has established its name among the public, the complainant alleged. "Their statements were sarcastic and intentionally made to hurt the prestige of the university," Patel said in his complaint.
On March 31 last year, the high court quashed a 2016 order of the Central Information Commission (CIC), which directed the Gujarat University to provide information on Modi’s educational degrees to Kejriwal, observing that the AAP chief’s RTI plea appeared to be "politically vexatious and motivated", instead of being based on ”sound public interest considerations".
