HC dismisses Raghav Chadha's plea on 'retweet'

In a blow to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Raghav Chadha, the Delhi High court on Monday dismissed his plea which contended that he cannot be made to face a criminal case for merely retweeting the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's tweet. The case here refers to a criminal defamation case filed by Union Minister Arun Jaitley against the CM and five other AAP leaders.

Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal dismissed the petition stating that it is "devoid of merit".

"The perusal of the complaint, statements of the witnesses examined by the complainant depict that the petitioner (Chadha) along with other accused persons participated in the press conference, issued derogatory statements orally, used Twitter handles, retweeted, disseminated, defamatory imputations targeting the complainant (Jaitley) through the platform of press and media from December 15, 2015 onwards and continued till December 20, 2015 after the CBI sleuths conducted a search," court said.

On whether retweeting would constitute an offence of defamation under Section 499 of IPC, the High Court said it was a question that has to be determined in the totality of the circumstances and has to be decided during the trial.

"It is not for this court, while exercising inherent powers under Section 482 of CrPC to go into the merits of the case. Undoubtedly, the Trial Court, in its order dated March 9, adduced the complaint, documents, evidence and all other relevant material and after careful scrutiny, summoned the petitioner on a well reasoned order holding that a prima facie case was made out against the petitioner and there were sufficient grounds for summoning him and to face trial under sections 499/500 of IPC," the court said.

"Whether retweeting would attract the liability under Section 499 IPC, is the question which requires to be determined in the totality of the circumstances and the same will have to be determined during trial and any interference at this stage by this court is likely to prejudice the findings of the trial court."

The court held that the said acts, aimed/targeted at Jaitley and his family members and attracted adverse attention of public.

"The individual and collective role of the petitioner and the other accused persons is spelled out in the assailed order. The aspect of applicability of Section 34 of the IPC can be gathered from the totality of circumstances to analyse the underlying common intention in commission of alleged offence," the court said.

Senior counsel Anand Grover, appearing for Raghav Chadha, argued that all communications allegedly made by Jaitley with defamatory imputations are in electronic form which are solely covered by the Information and Technology Act, 2000, and not by Section 499 (defamation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

He also said that retweet does not amount to publication for the purpose of Section 499 and there can be no defamatory case.

The case had come to the High Court at the direction of the apex court, which on September 15 had asked it to decide by September 25.

In his plea, Chadha had sought the setting aside of the trial court order summoning him as an accused in the criminal defamation case filed by Jaitley against him and five other AAP leaders, including Kejriwal.

Chadha had moved the apex court against the high court's July 11 order refusing to stay the lower court proceedings against him in the defamation matter.

In his plea, Chadha had raised the question before the high court as to whether the trial court could have summoned him without determining if the alleged defamatory statements, which were purportedly made through Twitter, were covered under the penal provision of defamation under the IPC.