The Jharkhand High Court Tuesday
quashed an arrest warrant issued by a lower court against Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar in a defamation case filed by a Congress leader.
Hearing the appeal, a bench of Justice Amitabh Gupta quashed the arrest warrant and stayed the trial case in the Dhanbad lower court against the Union Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Agriculture and Family Welfare Minister.
The minister's advocate Narendra Trivedi said they had filed a petition under Section 205 (personal attendance of accused) of CrPC in the lower court for exemption of physical presence of the minister, but without cancelling the petition, the lower court issued the arrest warrant.
"The High Court today not only quashed the arrest warrant, but also put a stay on trial of the case in the lower court," Trivedi said.
Chief Judicial Magistrate R K Singh of Dhanbad court had on June 4 issued bailable warrant against Tomar as the latter failed to appear in person before the court that day, as directed by the court on May 1.
At the first instance, the judicial magistrate had rejected the defamation petition. In the subsequent revision petition, the then district judge sent the case for trial and the judicial magistrate took cognizance under IPC Section 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace).
Subsequently, Tomar's lawyer obtained a stay on the case from the Jharkhand High Court.
As the six months period of the stay over the case lapsed in April, the complainant filed a petition for re-opening the matter in the lower court.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)