A magistrate court in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad district issued fresh summons to Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal and AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh in a criminal defamation complaint filed by Gujarat university for their alleged remarks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s academic degree, reported PTI.
The court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate SJ Panchal summoned the duo to appear on June 7, after the court was informed that the earlier summons asking the duo to appear on May 23 were not dispensed with. Earlier, the court of additional chief metropolitan magistrate Jayesh Chovatiya had issued summons to the AAP leaders in a criminal defamation complaint for their “sarcastic” and “derogatory” statements against the Gujarat University over PM Modi’s degree.
On Monday, AAP’s legal cell head for Gujarat, Pranav Thakkar, said that the two AAP leaders had not received any summons issued by them.
Gujarat University’s lawyer Amit Nair had on Tuesday appraised the new judge- SJ Panchal- about the case, and said that his predecessor issued the processes on April 15 against the accused persons to remain present on May 23.
The previous additional chief metropolitan magistrate-Jayesh Chovatiya- issued a summons on April 15 after finding that prima facie there appeared to be a case against Kejriwal and Singh under section 500 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The complaint was filed by Gujarat University registrar Piyush Patel.
He alleged that Kejriwal made remarks, such as, “If PM studied from Delhi University, Gujarat University, then Gujarat University should celebrate that their alumnus has become the Prime Minister and yet they are trying to hide,” “Degree is not being shown because maybe the degree is fake, forfeited,” “If the degree is there and it is real, then why is it not being given?”
Meanwhile, for Sanjay Singh, the complainant alleged that he had said, “They (GU) are trying to prove the PM’s fake degree as genuine.”