A Delhi court on Monday acquitted Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a criminal defamation case filed by then political secretary Pawan Khera to Sheila Dikshit when she was at the helm in the State.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal acquitted him, dismissing Mr. Khera’s complaint.
Mr. Kejriwal had opposed the complaint on the ground that the political secretary had no locus to file the complaint.
If the erstwhile Chief Minister was defamed by his statements, she should have in person moved the court against him,” he had contended.
Mr. Khera alleged that in an interview on October 10 in 2012, Mr. Kejriwal had accused the Chief Minister and her government ‘of being a dalal’ for big companies who facilitated and enabled profiteering at the cost of the common man.
‘In negative light’
Ms. Dikshit’s office and the officials were portrayed in a negative light and made to face an uncalled for humiliation where their integrity and honesty was put to doubt along with that of the Chief Minister, the complaint alleged.
Mr. Kejriwal had then organised several protests against power tariff hike in the Capital where he accused the government of stalling Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission’s move to cut power tariff in 2010.