Delhi High Court gives Tajinder Bagga 4 weeks to reply in Subramanian Swamy’s plea seeking to quash defamation summons. Swamy was earlier summoned over a tweet alleging Bagga’s criminal past.
New Delhi, April 30 – The Delhi High Court has given BJP leader Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga four weeks to submit his response in a legal case related to criminal defamation, which was filed by senior party leader and former Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy.
The matter relates to summons that were earlier issued to Swamy by a magistrate court. Swamy is now seeking to get those summons cancelled and has challenged the order in the High Court.
Justice Ravinder Dudeja, who is hearing the case, has also allowed Subramanian Swamy two weeks’ time to file his rejoinder after Bagga files his reply. The next hearing in the case is now scheduled for August 26.
Swamy had approached the Delhi High Court asking it to cancel the summons issued by the magistrate court in the defamation case that Bagga filed against him. He has requested the High Court to stop the proceedings.
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The High Court had earlier, on April 4, 2022, stayed the trial court proceedings. However, on the recent date of hearing, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who is representing Swamy, informed the court that Bagga had still not submitted his reply.
In response, Bagga’s lawyer said that Swamy first needed to present his arguments on whether his High Court plea was even maintainable. This was in reference to an earlier direction by the High Court where Swamy was told to justify why he came directly to the High Court instead of first going to the Sessions Court after summons were issued.
Hearing both sides, Justice Ravinder Dudeja said,
“You should at least file your reply and also make your submissions on the issue of maintainability in it.”
The court had previously told Swamy to present his case on this technical point — that is, whether he was allowed to directly move the High Court without first approaching a lower appellate court.
This entire case started in September 2021, when Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga accused Subramanian Swamy of defaming him through a tweet.
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According to Bagga, Swamy had falsely alleged on social media that he had been jailed many times for small crimes by the New Delhi Mandir Marg Police Station, before joining the BJP.
On March 22, 2022, the magistrate court found that there was enough ground to proceed against Swamy and issued summons to him, stating it was satisfied with the material on record. The court said there was a prima facie case and asked Swamy to appear as an accused.
Swamy’s legal team has argued in the High Court that the magistrate’s decision was incorrect and that his tweet was misunderstood.
Swamy’s lawyer said that the accusation in the tweet was supported by content available in the public domain and that “there was material in the public domain to show that the ‘substantial allegation’ in his tweet that the complainant was jailed existed.”
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However, Bagga has claimed in the lower court that these statements were completely false and were made to damage his public image. In his testimony before the magistrate, Bagga told the court that the tweet harmed his reputation and was a baseless allegation.
Based on the initial statements and documents, the magistrate court had ruled that the complaint had merit and stated there were “sufficient grounds for summoning Swamy as an accused.”
The case will now be further heard on August 26 after Bagga submits his reply and Swamy follows up with a rejoinder.
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