Cognizance Refused: Delhi's Rouse Avenue Court declined to take cognizance of Parvesh Verma's criminal defamation complaint against AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj.
Questions, Not Defamation: The magistrate ruled that Bharadwaj’s social media posts were framed as questions rather than defamatory statements.
Case Dismissed: The complaint—concerning alleged links to a West Delhi school POCSO case—was dismissed at the threshold without issuing summons.
Delhi Court Dismisses Parvesh Verma's Criminal Defamation Complaint Against Saurabh Bharadwaj
Rouse Avenue Court declines to take cognisance of the plea, observing that the AAP leader’s social media posts were framed as questions and did not amount to defamation
Summary
A Delhi court on Saturday dismissed a criminal defamation complaint filed by Delhi minister Parvesh Verma against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Saurabh Bharadwaj.
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) Neha Mittal declined to take cognisance of the complaint.
She said that the imputations attributed to Bharadwaj were in the nature of questions and did not amount to defamation. A detailed order is awaited.
Verma had alleged that Bharadwaj made certain malicious and false posts on social media.
He claimed that Bharadwaj's statements linking him to a POCSO Act case related to an incident in a school in his former constituency of West Delhi damaged his reputation.
Bharadwaj and Verma have made allegations against each other ever since the latter slapped an AAP supporter in full public view during a road inspection in the Vikaspuri area after charges of shoddy public work.
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