मानहानि केस- केजरीवाल की याचिका पर सुप्रीम कोर्ट में सुनवाई: ध्रुव राठी का वीडियो रीट्वीट करने के मामले में हाईकोर्ट के समन को चुनौती दी थी

In May 2018, Kejriwal had retweeted a defamatory video circulated by YouTuber Dhruv Rathee.

The Supreme Court will hear the petition of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today. In May 2018, Kejriwal had retweeted a defamatory video circulated by YouTuber Dhruv Rathee.

A defamation case was filed against Kejriwal regarding this and the Delhi High Court summoned him. Arvind Kejriwal filed a petition in the Supreme Court to challenge the summons of the Delhi High Court.

A bench of Justices Sanjeev Khanna, Sanjay Kumar and R. Mahadevan may hear this case. In this case, Kejriwal has already admitted that he had made a mistake by retweeting the video.

In the hearing held on March 11, the Supreme Court had asked Kejriwal whether he wanted to apologize to the complainant in this case. The court had also said that it would depend on the complainant whether he accepts this apology or not.

The case is from May 2018
Dhruv Rathi had tweeted in 2018 accusing the founder and operator of a Twitter page named ‘I Support Narendra Modi’ of behaving like BJP IT Cell Part-2. Delhi CM Kejriwal retweeted this tweet. In this video, derogatory things were said about a person named Vikas Sankrityayan.

When the matter reached the Delhi High Court, the court refused to quash the case saying that a large number of people follow Kejriwal on Twitter. Without verifying the derogatory comments made against the complainant, he retweeted them and spread them to crores of people.

The Supreme Court had asked the complainant- do they want to close the case
Kejriwal had told the Supreme Court on February 26 that he had made a mistake by retweeting an alleged defamatory video related to the BJP IT cell. The lawyer for complainant Vikas Sankrityayan had told the Supreme Court that Kejriwal can issue an apology on social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) or Instagram.

On February 26, the Supreme Court, without issuing notice on Kejriwal’s petition challenging the High Court order, had asked the complainant whether he wanted to close the case now that Kejriwal had admitted his mistake. The Supreme Court had asked the lower court not to hear this defamation case against Kejriwal till further orders.

The hearing was held in the High Court on 5 February
Earlier, the case was heard in the High Court on February 5. In this, the High Court had said that defamation law will apply on reposting the alleged derogatory content. One should feel responsible while retweeting any content about which there is no information. If a person retweets derogatory content, he may have to face legal action.

While refusing to set aside the 2019 order of the trial court, the High Court had said that when a public figure tweets a derogatory post, its consequences are far greater than a whisper in someone’s ear.

The court had said that no clear law has been made yet regarding retweeting and reposting, but if for this reason we allow reposting and retweeting, then many people with bad intentions will misuse it and will escape by saying that they had only retweeted some content.

Regarding this, Kejriwal had said that the trial court failed to understand that his tweet was not made with the intention of harming the complainant.