SC dismisses Raghav Chadha's plea against his trial in defamatory tweet case

A Supreme bench comprising of CJI Dipak Misra, Justice A M Khanwilkar and Justice D Y Chandrachud rejected an appeal filed by Aam Aadmi Party spokesperson, Raghav Chadha, in a retweet- defamation case against him. He has filed an appeal against the Delhi High court's judgment that rejected his petition challenging the summons issued to him by the trial court in a defamation case filed by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Advocate Anand Grover representing Raghav Chadha in the case argued that the alleged defamatory tweet against Jaitley was made by CM Arvind Kejriwal and his client has simply re-tweeted it. He also said that there exists no provision in any legislation under which his client could be prosecuted for re-tweeting a defamatory tweet. Chadha is presently facing trial under sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code. The bench rejected Grover's contention and asked that can a person who has retweeted a tweet that is per se derogatory, abusive or contains pornographic material, save himself from the prosecution merely on the ground that he is not the actual author of the content? Chadha's counsel said that the present case should not be dealt under IPC, rather it is covered by the Information Technology Act, however after the apex court's decision in Shreya Singhal vs Union of India where Section 66 A was repealed, now there exists no provision in the IT Act under which Chadha could be prosecuted. In response to Grover's plea, Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing Jaitley, in this case, said that the present case is of defamation, hence will be covered under Section 499 and 500 of the IPC and merely because the defamation was done on an online platform, the petitioner cannot be permitted to commit the offence. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had filed a criminal defamation case against Raghav Chadha and five other functionaries of the Aam Aadmi Party including Arvind Kejriwal for defaming him in a matter regarding the Delhi District Cricket Association. He has claimed an amount of Rs 10 crore as damages. The trial court then issued summons to all of the accused in the case. Raghav Chadha filed a petition in the Delhi High court against his summon, however, the same was dismissed. He then moved to the Supreme court against the High Court's decision. The apex court has now dismissed his appeal. The trial court will be deciding on whether a retweet would attract liability under Section 499 IPC or not.