The Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to Union minister Smriti Irani on a plea filed by Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam seeking to quash a criminal defamation complaint against him that Irani had filed, ANI reported. Irani and Nirupam had filed defamation complaints against each other.

On Monday, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi issued the notice to Smriti Irani on two appeals filed by Nirupam, according to PTI. The Congress leader had sought to quash the defamation complaint filed by Irani on January 1, 2013, and challenged a magisterial court’s order of March 11, 2013, summoning him in the case.

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On December 19, 2018, the Delhi High Court had quashed the summons issued to Irani in the defamation case filed by Nirupam, but had dismissed a petition filed by Nirupam to set aside the summons issued to him in a cross-defamation suit brought by Irani. The judge had said that Nirupam’s trial will continue. Nirupam had appealed against the High Court order.

Irani, in her plea at the High Court, had sought to quash the summons issued to her by a trial court on June 6, 2014 and to quash the defamation complaint filed by Nirupam. The High Court had advised both the leaders to arrive at a compromise with regard to the defamation cases they had filed against each other.

Irani had filed a defamation plea against Nirupam for allegedly using indecent language against her during a television debate in 2012. In turn, Nirupam accused Irani of making “scurrilous, defamatory and derogatory comments” against him. A court had put Nirupam on trial under Sections 500 (defamation) and 509 (uttering any word or making any gesture intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code.

Irani had alleged in her complaint that the Congress leader had questioned her credentials to analyse election results given that she was an actor.