PM Narendra Modi’s degree: Gujarat court issues fresh summons to Delhi CM, AAP MP

AHMEDABAD: A local court on Tuesday issued fresh summons to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and AAP’s Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh to appear before it on June 7 in a criminal defamation case filed by Gujarat University (GU) over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s degree.
Additional chief metropolitan magistrate S J Panchal summoned Kejriwal and Singh after the court was told that the summons issued earlier for the duo to appear on May 23, did not seem to have been received as none of them turned up.
Earlier, additional chief metropolitan magistrate Jayesh Chovatiya had issued summons to the AAP leaders in a criminal defamation complaint for their “sarcastic” and “derogatory” statements against GU over Modi’s degree.
On Tuesday, GU’s lawyer Amit Nair appraised the new judge, S J Panchal, about the case and said his predecessor had issued the summons on April 15 for the accused persons to remain present on May 23. As nobody was present, it was un clear if the summons were served. The judge asked staff to check and directed them to issue summons to Kejriwal and Singh.
The previous magistrate had issued summons after finding that prima facie there appeared to be a case against Kejriwal and Singh under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on a complaint filed by GU registrar Piyush Patel. The defamation case was filed against Kejriwal and Singh over their comments after the Gujarat high court set aside the chief information commissioner’s order asking the varsity to provide information on PM Modi’s degree.
They made “defamatory” statements at press conferences and on Twitter handles targeting the university over Modi’s degree, the complainant alleged, and claimed their comments were defamatory and hurt the prestige of the institution. The comments attributed to Kejriwal are: “If there is a degree and it is genuine, then why is it not being given?”, “They are not giving degree because it might be fake,” and “If the Prime Minister studied at Delhi University and Gujarat University, then Gujarat University should celebrate that its student became the country’s PM”.
Singh said that “they (GU) are trying to prove the PM’s fake degree as genuine”.
Four witnesses were examined, and evidence was submitted during the court inquiry. The lawyer for GU argued that the statements would make a person believe Gujarat University issues bogus degrees.