Defamation case: SC dismisses AAP leader Sanjay Singh’s plea against Gujarat HC order

New Delhi, Apr 8 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea filed by AAP leader Sanjay Singh challenging an order of the Gujarat High Court which refused to quash summons issued against him in a defamation case for his alleged comments on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s educational qualification.

The bench said the high court had already observed in its order that all contentions available to the parties were kept open and the trial judge would not be influenced by any observations made in the order. “We are not inclined to entertain the present petition,” a bench of Justices B R Gavai and Sandeep Mehta said.

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.

Kejriwal and Singh had challenged in the high court the summons issued by a trial court in the case filed by the 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 degrees under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

According to the complaint filed by Patel, the two leaders 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 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”.