A Delhi court on Tuesday granted exemption to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and three others from appearing in court in a defamation complaint lodged by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Rajiv Babbar, reports said. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal, however, ordered the Aam Aadmi Party chief, Rajya Sabha member Sushil Kumar Gupta, MLA Manoj Kumar and AAP spokesperson Atishi Marlena to appear before the court for the next hearing scheduled on June 7, IANS reported.
Advocate Mohammad Irshad had requested the court to exempt the AAP leaders from appearing in court as they are engaged in political events in Delhi and Haryana. On March 15, the court had ordered the four leaders to appear before it on April 30.
Babbar, in his complaint, had accused the four leaders of harming the BJP’s reputation by claiming that the party was responsible for the deletion of voters’ names from the electoral rolls in Delhi. “All the accused made accusations against BJP in a calculated manner with the sole intention to portray a negative image of BJP in relation to the voters belonging to certain sections of society, namely, Bania, Poorvanchalis, Muslims, among others,” Babbar had said.
The BJP leader claimed Kejriwal had made the statements to gain “cheap political mileage”.
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