Senior Congress leader DigvijaySingh was today summoned by a Delhi court to face trial in acriminal defamation case lodged against him by BJP PresidentNitin Gadkari.
"Accused Digvijay Singh has been summoned for the offenceunder sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code to facetrial for criminal defamation. Let he be summoned for December21," Metropolitan Magistrate Sudesh Kumar said.
The court on October 16 had reserved its order on the BJPpresident's complaint after recording the statements of twowitnesses.
The court had recorded the statement of Gadkari and BJPNational Secretary Bhupinder Yadav, also a Rajya Sabha MP.
Gadkari has filed the criminal defamation case againstSingh, who had accused him of having business links with hisparty MP Ajay Sancheti who allegedly pocketed a huge sum inthe coal block allocation.
Gadkari, in his statement recorded in the court, haddenied having any business ties with Sancheti and had saidSingh had levelled "totally false and defamatory" allegationsagainst him to "give the impression that I have beenresponsible for allocation of coal mines" to Sancheti.
In his petition, filed through advocate Ajay Digpaul,Gadkari has sought Singh's prosecution under sections 499(defamation) and 500 (punishment for defamation) of the IPC.
In his complaint, Gadkari has said the Congress-led UPAgovernment is facing a lot of heat on account of itsirregularities as brought out by the Comptroller and AuditorGeneral of India (CAG) in coal blocks allocation and accusedSingh of making baseless allegations against him to divertattention from the issue.
Gadkari's counsel had earlier denied that his client has any "direct or indirect" business relations with Sancheti andcontended that Singh's statement had the "clear intention tomalign the reputation of the complainant."
Yadav, who had also recorded his statement in the court,had said that on September 3, he read news articles in variousnewspapers about the alleged business relations betweenGadkari and Sancheti and it was "totally false" that Gadkarihad earned Rs 490 crore from coal allocation through Sancheti.
Yadav had also said the news was "defamatory" and it hadlowered Gadkari's image in the eyes of the public.
The court had also recorded the statement of anauthorised representative of a national English daily in whichthe alleged defamatory statement of Singh was published.