Aitshi Marlena KejriwalAitshi Marlena Kejriwal

A Delhi court has issued summons to AAP leader and Delhi’s education minister Atishi Marlena Singh (Atishi) in the criminal defamation case filed by Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) media head Praveen Shankar Kapoor over her claims that BJP had approached Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders to join their party in return for ₹20-30 crores each.

Atishi had not only made claims in public, she had conducted press conference claiming people ‘close’ to her, who she refused to name, had been approached to take the deals offered to fruition. She had said up to 21 AAP leaders were being targeted.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Tanya Bamniyal of the Rouse Avenue Courts said:

“… there exist sufficient grounds to summon accused Atishi Marlena u/s 500 IPC. Accordingly, issue summons to accused Ms Atishi Marlena for offence u/s 500 IPC on filing of PF and RC as per rules,”.

Kapoor had filed the criminal defamation case against both Kejriwal and Atishi but the ACMM found no case made out against Kejriwal.

Kapoor had claimed every time the Enforcement Directorate (ED) approached the AAP leaders in connection with any case, they would drag the BJP into and allege that BJP was trying to poach AAP MLAs.

He said these allegations were utterly false and no material has been furnished by AAP to substantiate the claims.

Drawing the court’s attention to facts, Kapoor pointed to a post on X (Twitter) by Kejriwal on January 27 and a press conference conducted by Atishi on April 2.

Kejriwal’s tweet alleged that BJP was offering ₹25 crores to poach the MLAs and efforts were being made to bring down the Delhi government alleging that BJP had contacted 7 AAP MLAs.

Kapoor also pointed to the timing of the allegations Atishi made against the BJP pointing to the time Atishi’s name surfaced in the excise policy case, she also made the same allegations to divert the attention from the “real issue”.

By Singh