Delhi High Court refuses to quash defamation case against Arvind Kejriwal for retweeting Dhruv Rathee video about BJP IT Cell

The Delhi High Court on Monday refused to quash a criminal defamation case filed against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kerjriwal for re-tweeting a video titled ‘BJP IT Cell Part 2’ made by YouTuber Dhruv Rathee [Arvind Kejriwal v State & Anr]..Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma upheld a trial court order summoning Arvind Kejriwal in the case.The single-judge said that Kejriwal has a significant following on X (formerly Twitter) and he did understand the repercussions of retweeting the video. "Retweeting defamatory content does amount to defamation," the Court added..In a detailed judgement, the Bench said that Kejriwal is the Chief Minister of the State which implies that he has a wider reach which makes any retweet by him, a form of public endorsement or acknowledgment. The Court said that when a political person of such standing posts some content on his social media account, it can be reasonably believed that he did understand the repercussions and implications of posting such content and the harm it can cause to the person aggrieved. "In this Court's opinion, the online interactions and engagement on Twitter, which involves publication of defamatory statements and content, and sharing such content with others by retweeting will surely attract liability since it would amount to posting defamatory content as one's own by believing it to be true and thus, sharing it with the public at large," the Court said .Justice Sharma added whether Kerjriwal was aware of the content he was retweeting and his intent regarding defamation of the complainant are things that will be decided by the court during the trial. "This Court, thus, for the purpose of adjudicating the present case, holds that retweeting a content, which is allegedly defamatory, on the Twitter account and projecting it to be as if his own views, will prima facie attract the liability under Section 499 of IPC, for the purpose of issuance of summons. Therefore, this Court finds no infirmity with the impugned orders passed by the learned Trial Court as well as learned Sessions Court.".The case was filed by Vikas Sankrityan alias Vikas Pandey who claims to be a supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and is the founder of social media page ‘I Support Narendra Modi’..In his video, Dhruv Rathee had said that Pandey is the second-in command of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) IT cell and that Pandey had offered ₹50 lakh through a middleman to one Mahavir Prasad to recant his allegations that the ruling party's IT cell spreads lies and fake news.The allegations were made by Prasad in an interview with Rathee. The interview was uploaded by Rathee on his YouTube channel March 10, 2018 under the title 'BJP IT Cell Insider Interview'.On May 7, 2018, Rathee uploaded the video titled BJP IT Cell Part 2 and alleged that Prasad was offered the money.This video was retweeted by Kerjiwal..In was Pandey’s case that Kejriwal re-tweeted the video on May 7, 2018 which contained false and defamatory allegations against him. He said that Kejriwal is followed by crores of people and by retweeting the video without checking the authenticity of the allegations, the Delhi Chief Minister made it available to a large number of audience at national and international level..Kejriwal was issued summons by the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate on July 17, 2019.He approached the Sessions Court against the order but the court refused to quash the summons..Kerjiwal then approached the High Court challenging the orders of both the Magistrate and Sessions Court. He also sought quashing of the criminal complaint (defamation case) filed by Pandey.The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) National Convenor said that Pandey has not prosecuted the original author of the allegedly offending publication (Dhruv Rathee) and others who also re-tweeted, liked and commented on the video. Instead, he has only moved against Kejriwal which demonstrates Pandey’s mala fide.His counsel contended that there is no evidence to show that Kejriwal retweeted the video with an intention to harm Pandey’s reputation and, therefore, no case of defamation is made out..Senior Advocate Manish Vashishth along with advocates Karan Sharma, Rishabh Sharma, Vedanth Vashishth, Mohd Irshad and Harshita Nathrani appeared for Arvind Kejriwal.Vikas Pandey was represented by advocates Raghav Awasthi, Kunal Tiwari and Mukesh Sharma.Additional Public Prosecutor Manoj Pant appeared for the State. .[Read Judgment]