A court here on Friday granted bail to AAP leader Atishi, its Rajya Sabha member Sushil Kumar Gupta and MLA Manoj Kumar in a defamation case filed by the BJP for their alleged remarks over deletion of names from the voters’ list of the city.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is also an accused in the case but he could not appear. The court directed him to appear on July 6.
Those who appeared were granted bail on personal bond of ₹10,000 each.
The court had summoned the accused persons on March 16.
The complainant, BJP leader Rajeev Babbar, on behalf of the Delhi unit of the party sought their prosecution for harming the reputation of the outfit by blaming it for the deletion of names from the voters’ list.
“Allegations of the respondents [Mr. Kejriwal and others] are prima facie, defamatory and refers to complainant BJP. The inquiry as contemplated under Section 202 of the Code of Criminal Procedure has been duly conducted by examining the authorised representative of the complainant and his witnesses. There exists sufficient grounds to proceed against all the respondents,” the court had said while summoning the accused persons.
Mr. Babbar, in the complaint, said that the accused, at a press conference held in December last year, alleged that on the directions of the BJP, names of 30 lakh voters of Bania, Poorvanchali and Muslim communities were deleted by the Election Commission of India.