The Delhi high court on Monday granted four weeks to former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and other Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders to file their response in a criminal contempt case initiated against them by Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma over alleged defamatory social media posts targeting her.
A bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Arun Bhardwaj also permitted Kejriwal and the other AAP leaders Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh, Saurabh Bharadwaj, Vinay Mishra and Durgesh Pathak, to approach the judicial registrar for copies of documents and other material that formed the basis of the contempt proceedings but had not yet been supplied to them.
The direction came after senior advocate Vikram Chaudhary, appearing for Kejriwal, along with lawyers representing the other AAP leaders, submitted that certain documents had not been provided to the accused.
“The respondents are permitted to approach the registrar. Let the replies be filed by the respondents in four weeks,” the court said in its order, while fixing November 16 as the next date of hearing.
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On February 27, a trial court discharged Kejriwal and others in the excise policy case, prompting the CBI to approach the high court. On March 9, Justice Sharma stayed the trial court’s direction for departmental action against a CBI officer and deferred Enforcement Directorate (ED) proceedings.
However, Kejriwal then sought to transfer the matter from her bench, which was rejected by Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya on March 13.
On April 5, Kejriwal, Sisodia and others sought Justice Sharma’s recusal, which she dismissed on April 20. On April 27, Kejriwal informed the judge that he would boycott the proceedings.
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Following this, Sisodia and Pathak also wrote similar letters. On May 5, the court decided to appoint senior advocates as amicus curiae to represent the three leaders, but the matter was deferred on three occasions.
However, on May 14, justice Sharma initiated contempt proceedings and withdrew herself, stating that the law did not permit a judge who has initiated contempt proceedings over allegedly defamatory, contemptuous and vilifying material posted against the judge on social media – in relation to a matter to continue hearing that very matter.
Following the initiation of the contempt, a lawyer Ashok Chaitanya also sought initiation of contempt proceedings against Kejriwal, Bhardwaj, Gopal Rai and a journalist for allegedly running a coordinated campaign targeting Justice Sharma.
