Supreme Court on Monday, pronounced its judgment on two petitions filed by BJP leaders Manoj Tiwari and Vijendar Gupta against Delhi High Court’s refusal to quash the summoning order issued by a Magistrate in the defamation case filed by Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia.
A bench comprising Justices S. Abdul Nazeer and Justices V. Ramabsubramanian, dismissed Manoj Tiwari’s appeal but granted BJP MLA Vijender Gupta’s appeal and quashed the defamation case against him.
During the hearing, the bench ruled that Vijendra Gupta tweets were not defamatory.
“We don’t think that this man (Sisodia) is a corrupt man by reading the tweets (by Gupta)”, the bench had orally commented during the hearing.”
The defamation case was filed by Sisodia in 2019 against BJP leaders – Members of Parliament Manoj Tiwari, Hans Raj Hans and Pravesh Verma, former MLA Manjinder Singh Sirsa, MLA Vijender Gupta, and Spokesperson Harish Khurana.
Deputy CM of Delhi accused them for allegedly making defamatory statements about him in involvement in corruption of nearly Rs 2,000 crore in the building of classrooms in Delhi’s government schools.
A 2019 trial court summoned Manoj Tiwari and Vijender Gupta as defamation defendants. In December 2020, the Delhi High Court upheld an order against Manoj Tiwari and Vijender Gupta.
