The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday declined to speed up the hearing of the petitions filed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh. These petitions seek the quashing of summons issued against them for allegedly defaming Gujarat University regarding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s academic credentials.
Justice Samir Dave, presiding over the case, rejected the request for prioritised proceedings, marking the third such refusal by the court.
The petitions were originally scheduled for a regular hearing on the daily cause list. However, the court indicated its intent to address the supplementary cause list first, containing matters previously postponed, before taking up the daily cause list. Notably, Justice Dave was unavailable for court proceedings on Monday, September 25.
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Consequently, the legal representatives of Kejriwal and Singh sought the earliest available date for rescheduling the hearing, which has now been set for September 29. Meanwhile, the magistrate court conducting the criminal defamation case has scheduled the next hearing for October 14.
Kejriwal and Singh are currently involved in a criminal defamation case in Ahmedabad. They were initially summoned by a magistrate court to appear on April 15 and subsequently received fresh summons on May 23. On September 16, the two AAP leaders approached the high court, challenging the April summons and requesting their dismissal.
Furthermore, they seek to cancel a session court ruling that upheld the magistrate’s decision to issue the summons.
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The case emerges from allegations made by Gujarat University, conveyed through its registrar, Piyush Patel, who claimed that Kejriwal had made defamatory statements during a press conference on April 1, with Singh following suit on April 2.
These statements were made in response to the high court’s decision to set aside a Central Information Commission order instructing the university to “search for information” regarding PM Modi’s academic qualifications.
